


Soldier, Take Your Time

by Bannedd567



Series: Tales of Etheria [8]
Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Adora (She-Ra) Needs a Hug, Adora Needs Therapy (She-Ra), Adora suffers a lot in this I'm sorry, And they don't even know, Angella mum of the year, Angst, Anxiety, Blood and Injury, Bow and Glimmer the ones that have to deal with the idiots, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Communication, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Entrapta the unlikely therapist, F/F, Friends to Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Grief, Hero Complex, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mild Gore, Missing Scene, Mutual Pining, Oblivious Adora (She-Ra), POV Adora (She-Ra), Self-Worth Issues, Sexual Tension, Survivor Guilt, Touch-Starved, featuring:
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:15:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26894305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bannedd567/pseuds/Bannedd567
Summary: “The dream shows the inner truth and reality of the patient as it really is: not as I conjecture it to be, and not as he would like it to be, but as it is.”- C. G. Jung.Or,Adora, her dreams, and all that happens inbetween.
Relationships: Adora & Catra (She-Ra), Adora/Catra (She-Ra), Bow/Glimmer (She-Ra)
Series: Tales of Etheria [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1809997
Comments: 96
Kudos: 172





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Shout out to my brother for telling me to listen to [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8bUwyWBU4k), which sorta inspired this whole thing, because he said it reminded him of me. He'll never read this, but I guess I should thank him for making me use my braincells. For better or worse.

>   
>  _"In dreams the truth is learned that good work is done in the absence of a caress."_
> 
> **Leonard Cohen**

_Left jab, right jab, bounce back, right hook._

Adora sucks in a quick breath and pushes the air out with a single, strong exhale, the fire in her lungs growing the more she keeps up the intensity. Rivulets of sweat drip down her face and body, blurring her vision when they fall into her eyes. Her bare knuckles are slick and scrubbed raw, and sparkles of pain flare up Adora’s arms as she lands punch after punch, but she doesn’t slow down. If anything, she hits harder.

_Left jab, dodge, right hook, side kick._

Adora missteps a little as she falls back from that last combo into a neutral position. She grits her teeth, driving her elbow into the punching bag a little more violently than needed on her next blow, right where the juncture between arm and chest would be. In a real life scenario, it would have taken out two ribs and, at the very least, damaged the sternum.

_Right jab, right jab, left uppercut._

_In through the nose, out of the mouth. Stay on your toes. Guard up._

She pushes her weight forward with the hits, making sure to maintain a perfect form for each and every move. The times she fails, she repeats the sequence until she gets it right, trying to keep up the rhythm. She has no clue how much time has passed since she stepped into the training hall, only that it was pitch black in the sky when she landed the first punch, and now the pink hues of early morning light are starting to cast shadows around her.

With a louder grunt, she kicks into the side of the punching bag so hard she feels the leather give in. Sand pours to the ground like a waterfall. Adora stumbles back, panting, hands on her knees. She can barely stand. Her entire body is shaking, tiny dots colouring her vision in different spots, and she groans, annoyed, because she’d been landing hit after hit with peak precision and strength, and now she ruined her strike. In combat, this could have cost her the battle.

A training dummy stands a few feet from her. Adora takes a deep breath, body tensed and ready to snap like a spring. Letting out a brief shout, she runs forward and spins, twisting her body in a roundhouse kick aimed straight for the temporal lobe.

“- _dora_? Adora? _”_

Adora’s concentration cracks and she loses control of the move before her sole can even touch the dummy. She slips on her foot and her ankle bends, making a sharp sting of pain shoot up her leg to her spine. She’s leaning back, way too far as she tries to regain some sort of balance, and immediately falls flat on the ground.

The back of her head drops painfully on the smooth floor and she yelps in pain, clutching it in her hands. She rolls to the side, curling up into herself, muffled curses and tiny whimpers hissed through clenched teeth.

“Oh, goodness! Adora, are you alright?”

Her eyes squint open, just a little. The first thing she sees are cascading pink hair and a worried gaze looking upside down at her, purplish skin muted into a soft violet by the early light entering the hall from the high windows. Adora feels like she can’t move, every limb and muscle turned to lead. It’s like she ran a marathon for a week straight, and her throat feels so dry she tastes rust on the back of her tongue.

Despite all that, the second her brain registers that she’s looking up at Angella, the literal Queen of Bright Moon, she reacts on military-drilled instinct. Her upper body lifts off the floor at once , right arm already up and bent into a salute even with her ass still planted on the floor.

“Y-Your Majesty! Hi- I mean, uhm, g- good morning!” she’s talking way too loud, Adora is vaguely aware of it, but her heart is still in her throat and adrenaline runs fast in her veins, and she can’t exactly control the frantic feeling bubbling in her chest. 

“I’m-you’re awake already. N-not that you can’t, or shouldn’t be, I mean, you’re the Queen, you can do what you want, I wasn’t trying to say...” if she had a way to stick her entire foot in her mouth, Adora would. “Feel free to tell me to tell me to shut up at any moment...”

She keeps her arms wrapped self consciously around her midriff. She’s half sprawled on the floor in a sports bra and shorts, both completely soaked through with perspiration, and she gave up on trying to blow wayward strands of hair from her face when they started sticking to it. The perfect picture of a complete mess.

Angella only chuckles, lifting a graceful hand. “At ease, Adora. It’s still too early for me to be Queen,” she says. She’s out of her usual get up, wearing a flowing robe that lets her opalescent wings out behind her back. They’re folded, and her posture overall lacks the usual steel of the one she maintains in the war room. “I’m sorry for scaring you, I thought you’d heard me.”

“I’m sorry,” Adora stammers, rubbing sweaty palms on her shorts to not great use. “The doors don’t make that much noise when they open, so I didn’t notice you standing there.“

The Queen remains quiet for a bit, frowning slightly. “You didn’t hear me calling your name?”

Adora spends a good couple of seconds gaping like a dumb fish. “I...” she mumbles, at a complete loss of what to say. She has no excuse, and most of all, she’s too tired to even bother coming up with one. She was disrespectful, that’s it. “I didn’t mean to ignore you...” 

The Queen doesn’t seem offended by her lapse in etiquette, though. “It’s okay, Adora, I understand. You were clearly very focused.“ Angella gives her a quick once over as she crouches down to Adora’s level. She looks around then, mouth pulled into an amused smile. “What are you doing up this early, aside from destroying training supplies?”

“I, destroying? No, I was just...“ Adora trails off lamely the moment her eyes land on the fallen punching bag, ripped clear in its middle, and finally realizes what she’s done to it. It’s the third one this week. She whimpers, turning to face Angella and clasping her palms together in front of her face in prayer, eyes squeezed shut. “Please don’t tell General Juliet, I promised her I wouldn’t do this again.”

To her surprise, the Queen simply chuckles. “Your secret is safe with me. We’ll tell her I needed to get out some steam after a meeting with some stupid politician,“ she says. She extends her arm, palm facing upward. She’s not wearing gloves yet. “Now come on, let me help you up.”

Adora stares at the hand for one, two beats, before hesitantly reaching out. The second she’s on her feet and takes a step back, she gasps, her right leg almost giving out under her weight. She grips harder on the Queen’s hand out of instinct.

Angella notices immediately. “Are you alright? That looked like a pretty nasty fall.”

It was. Just from the way pain is flaring up her ankle and calf, she can tell it’s going to take a lot of prodding and kneading, a bucket load of ice, and between one and two days of rest, at minimum, to completely recover.

She could always turn into She-Ra to try her hand at that healing thing and speed through the process, but based on the prickling burn that the injuries of the Battle of Bright Moon have left in her body, she doesn’t know how much that would work. She-Ra had healed immediately during the fight, but once she was back to being Adora, alone in her room, and she’d taken off her shirt on the way to the bathroom, she had completely frozen in front of the full length mirror by the vanity.

She doesn’t know how much time she spent staring at the already formed scars running from shoulders to hips, four parallel lines on each side glaring at her through her reflection. Turning back around hadn’t been a solution, because her face was just as marred, the two scratches extending from her jaw to the middle of her cheek a sickening reminder of the warmth of the palm that had cradled her face.

Adora is no stranger to scars. Her whole body is littered with them, from the countless hours of training she’s pushed herself through every day since she was a child, or bouts of general clumsiness. The ones she received from Catra, especially, she’d learned to treasure. All the accidental marks left on her hands and wrists from when she still didn’t know how to retract her claws, or when her teeth were growing and she needed something to nibble on. The others she left as they grew up, whenever they tussled and pounced on each other without the slightest worry of intentionally harming Adora.

But that was the past. Now there’s not a part of her that Catra hasn’t hit since they became enemies. Her back, her face, her stomach, her legs and arms. Her claws have pierced She-Ra’s skin too many times to count already, and yet, somehow, the pain of those injuries always seems to go straight to her heart. It tears into it with an insistence that sometimes leaves her wide awake at night, staring at the ceiling in silence so that if she focuses, she can still pretend to hear the creaking of the water pipes and whirring of machines that never quieted in the Fright Zone.

Adora would like to talk about it with Glimmer and Bow, but she doesn’t know how to even begin to explain to them that a part of her misses the familiarity of the only home she’d known since she was a baby. Or that all of her, for some stupid reason, still misses the person that just a week ago tried to conquer Bright Moon, left her for dead in the Crystal Castle, attacked Salineas, almost destroyed the Kingdom of Snows and kidnapped them in the process.

Sometimes she wonders if she ever knew Catra at all. It’s a weakness, one she knows she’s not supposed to think about, one that should be ignored. Just like the pain in her leg.

Fortunately, Adora is a soldier. She was raised for this exact purpose. To never stop pushing herself, to complete the mission, the task at hand, the training, whatever it is she has to do in spite of her injuries. So she bites her tongue and bears it, like she always does, because it’s the only thing she knows how to do. She doesn’t know how to function in any other way.

She stands up straighter, shifting carefully on her feet to distribute more weight on her left leg, and lets go of Angella’s hand. “Nothing to worry about, I’ll be fine in no time, ma’am.”

The Queen purses her lips, clearly doubtful. “If you say so, dear,” she concedes in the end, though she doesn’t look pleased with it. “But please, do consider taking a break. We could all use more hours of sleep, and our best fighter is not excluded.”

“B-best fighter? Me?” Adora rubs the back of her head, self conscious. She can’t quite stop the pleased flush that spreads on her cheeks, or the way her chest fills with pride at the praise. “Come on, I wouldn’t say that.”

“Adora, please. We both know our guards are a bit... untrained, so to speak.”

That’s an understatement. Adora doesn’t want to be mean, and everyone in the Bright Moon army is very nice and clearly doing their best, but it’s clear they have no clue what _being a guard_ actually means. Not to mention, aside from a select few, Adora can’t get a decent spar in unless Netossa happens to be visiting, and now that she’s been sent to scout the valleys right outside of Plumeria’s borders with Spinnerella, it’s not going to happen anytime soon.

“Maybe they get distracted easily. But it’s fine, they’re getting the hang of it,” she says. She allows herself to grin, the rigid set of her shoulder giving way to a playful shrug. “I still think the castle could use a prison, though. You know, just in case.”

Angella cups her chin in thought. “I will tell Juliet about it, see what can be arranged,” she concedes after a moment, but her attention is clearly elsewhere. “Never mind that, though. How are you feeling?”

“Oh, uhm, pretty confident,” Adora nods firmly, her hands folding behind her back almost on autopilot. She’s pretty sure she can flawlessly answer any question the Queen may have for her, after all they had a briefing regarding the status of the Rebellion’s troops dispatched all over Etheria only yesterday. Her notes got a bit jumbled at one point, but she made sure to highlight all the important parts. “The Rebellion is gaining ground and we just freed a pass to the Whispering Woods. Towns on the Eastern coast have been recently sacked, but Mermista said she’ll be able to provide for their food supplies for the next few weeks at least, which would give us time to do something about-“

“That’s very reassuring,“ Angella interrupts her, but not rudely, her tone brimming instead with a concern that Adora is still getting used to hearing directed at herself. “But it’s not what I asked. How are _you_ , Adora?”

Now, _that_ , Adora was not expecting.

Angella is so tall it’s difficult to find a spot behind her shoulder to stare at without making it obvious Adora is trying to avoid looking at her. It feels awful. Adora already hates lying as is, it doesn’t help that she absolutely sucks at it, too. Her mouth opens and closes uselessly a couple of times, trying to work around the sudden lump that’s formed in her throat.

“It’s stupid,” she lets out, teeth digging in her lower lip. There is a burning sensation growing somewhere behind her eyes, a direct consequence to the sinking feeling that’s pulling right behind her sternum, but she stubbornly refuses to let any of that out. She’s not a baby, for fuck’s sake. “It’s really, really stupid-“

A light touch on her shoulder coaxes her to look up. The Queen regards her with a warm look, her eyes crinkled at the corners and almost as gentle as the tone of her voice.

“It’s not stupid if it upsets you.”

It feels so weird to hear that. In the Horde, if you had nightmares, you got over it and went on with your day. Adora remembers countless nights when she would wake up with her heart beating so hard she thought it was going to jump right out of her chest, the cold lights of the barracks creating plays of shadows that threatened to keep her awake all night. But whenever she started spiralling and her breath turned shallow, fear gripping her chest and lungs, there was always something to snap her out of it.

A playful pair of mismatched eyes blinking sleepily up at her, a rumbling purr, the poke of barely unsheathed claws drumming on her calf over the blanket . 

She seriously needs to stop thinking about it.

“I had a dream and couldn’t fall back to sleep.” Adora says quickly, unsure of how much she should, and wants, to share. “Light Hope has been coming up new battle simulations at the Crystal Castle to, uhm, help me visualize the real threat of battle during training. I just dreamt about the last one I ran through. It didn’t go too well.”

Angella quirks a single brow, looking Adora up and down once more. “Did you get hurt? You shouldn’t push yourself so much, Adora. Are the simulations giving you trouble?”

Adora swallows thickly, keeping her eyes firmly locked onto her bare feet. She licks her lips, trying to keep her voice level as she answers, “Something like that.”

The Queen nods, features pulled in a pensive frown. “Well, what was your dream about?”

Adora doesn’t even know how to explain it.

Light Hope hasn’t shied away from using Adora’s memories to recreate realistic threats and environments, replacing the bare walls of the Crystal Castle with different locations scattered across Etheria, and those vicious spiders that Adora had quickly grown to hate with enemies she’d faced in the past.

At first it had simply been Horde bots, and they were a breeze to take down. Then she was faced with her old squad mates, random Horde Soldiers, and even Shadow Weaver in a scarily accurate recreation of that one trip to Mystacor. The familiar faces took a little bit more of time to get used to, even just on a purely mental level, but she eventually came around defeating them as quickly as she could, both as Adora and She-Ra.

Independently from who or where she fights, though, there’s a single constant that she’s forced to face session after session.

Catra is always saved for last, and no matter how hard Adora tries, she never manages to do more than push her to a standstill, the tip of the sword stuck trembling inches away from Catra’s neck. That usually ends with Catra disappearing before her eyes like a glitch, laughing as she goes, and Light Hope’s inexpressive face waiting patiently by her side as Adora gasps for breath and pleads for another try, swears she can do better if she’s granted one more chance.

That’s just what happens during the simulations, and Adora has dealt with feeling like she’s never enough her whole entire life. It makes it hard to fall asleep at night sometimes, sure, but it is not what bothers her the most.

Or at least, it wasn’t until tonight.

In her dream, her sword had sunk into Catra’s stomach so deeply the tip had pierced through her back with a sickening, squelching sound. Blood had begun to pour on the ground like a waterfall, and though it made everything slippery her grip never loosened once. Adora was left to watch her own hands push and twist the blade in, no control over her own body as Catra’s pained scream filled the air and her claws raked over Adora’s arms and wrists in a pathetic attempt to make her stop.

She looked so hurt, so scared as she stared up at Adora, eyes wide open and filled with fear and hatred, twitching like a dying animal in Adora’s bloody hands, and she could hear her own voice breaking as she whispered an endless string of apologies in Catra’s hair, cradling her back and forth, her torn body rapidly growing cold and still in her arms. Not She-Ra’s. She was in Adora’s arms, like she’d been countless times before in their childhood whenever she got hurt before Adora could prevent it.

And, apparently, nothing had really changed.

Adora never managed to protect her, to take away even a fraction of the pain Catra had suffered her whole life, and even now she was the catalyst of Catra's suffering, the one that pushed the sword between her ribs, the reason _Catra_ _was dying-_

Adora had woken up with tears streaming down her face and gasping, so tangled in the sheets she may as well have been trapped in coils. It had taken a tremendous amount of effort not to cry out and wake the whole castle. She barely made it to the bathroom before she collapsed in front of the toilet, dry heaving, her throat burning despite nothing but spit coming out of her mouth. She’d all but burst out of the room as soon as she managed to get to her feet, hands shaking so hard she hadn’t even bothered to try putting on a pair of shoes.

“Adora?”

A gentle touch on the back of her right palm startles her back to the present. Adora slowly takes notice of the way her hands are curled into tight fists. Her jaw is clenched so tightly it hurts, and it still aches a bit after she releases the tension.

The Queen’s hands are very soft. She’s not wearing her gloves, and the warmth of her silk-like skin soothes the bruises on Adora’s knuckles.

She swallows, feeling a bitter taste in the back of her throat when all she can think about are tendrils made of shadows and a palm as cold as ice cupping her cheek, promises of a brilliant future being whispered in her ears. But only if she was the best.

Wake up, train, eat, study, eat, study again, train again, eat, sleep.

Be the first out of bed, the last to leave the training room. Stay at the top of your class, get the highest scores in battle simulations. No time to rest, don’t get distracted. Stop playing around, fulfil your destiny. Leave those weaklings behind, focus for the bigger picture.

(“Bigger picture my ass,” Catra told her once, sitting close to her on their lookout during a break. It was near moonset, and she’d taken off her headpiece, long hair curling in the breeze. “I bet that old fart has never stuck a foot out of her stupid chamber. Maybe she doesn’t even go to the bathroom, that’s why she’s so full of shit.”

Adora hadn’t been able to look at Shadow Weaver in the face for a week because she was scared of laughing in her face.)

Angella is nothing like that. Her touch carries the unspoken weight of an offer, not a demand. She is willing to listen, but won’t push or coerce anything out of her if Adora won’t tell her. She cares, visibly and openly, about her. Adora, the girl, not her power or the things she can offer. Not a mysterious, magical destiny she never asked for in the first place.

She’s not there as a general, or as the Queen, or as the Commander of the Rebellion.

She’s just Angella, and she is trusting Adora to confide in her. She’s being kind, respectful.

Motherly.

_This._

Adora realises it then, with a startling clearness that makes her blood boil in anger when she thinks about all that could have been and never was. Bitter, angry tears threaten to fill her eyes, but she swallows them down out of pure spite, because if there’s someone that she doesn’t want to let into her mind anymore, it’s Shadow Weaver.

 _This_ _is what a mother is supposed to be like._

_Why couldn’t you give me that?_

_Why couldn’t you give_ her _that?_

“Adora?”

Adora’s body catches up to who she’s standing in front of before her mind does. She takes deep and measured breaths, pacing them like she first learned to do in combat class to keep her heart rate steady and take back control of herself. She may be out of the Fright Zone and in the most welcoming place she could possibly think of, but it’s hard to break out of habits she made her own since she was a toddler.

She looks up at the Queen with as much sincerity she can manage. She hopes it will be enough. “I’m sorry, Your Maj- _Angella,_ ” Adora is quick to correct herself when she’s given a warning look that is in equal parts exasperated and amused. “I would like to tell you, but... I-I can’t.”

In the Horde, this could have never happened. You simply didn’t refuse to give information to your superiors when you were asked to. The best one could do was threading a fine line between said and unsaid. There were no secrets, and those you kept would often be pulled out of you by any means necessary. They had to be kept under tight wraps, reserved for late night talks when everything was dark and the shadows couldn’t get to you.

And Angella, she’s not satisfied with her answer, that much is clear, but she only gives Adora a nod in understanding. “It’s your call to make,” she says, quietly. Her smile is nothing but reassuring. “Just know that you won’t ever bother us with your concerns. If I know my daughter, for one, she’d be more than happy to help you kick whatever is troubling you...” she pauses with an embarrassed grin, “in the behind, for a lack of better words. Even if just metaphorically.”

Adora laughs despite herself. Glimmer would definitely beat her problems to a pulp if she could, with Bow right behind her, maybe encouraging a less violent, but equally persistent approach. He’d politely shoo the worries out of her with firm hugs and cups of tea. It’s been a while since they had a sleepover, what with being dead tired after the battle and defining the details for their future missions. She misses it, misses _them_ , even if they’re both just down the hall from her room.

“I’d do the same,” Adora says, and there’s no hesitation in her voice this time when she adds, “thank you, Angella.” Adora’s shoulders relax, releasing their tension. She doesn’t feel like she’s walking on rusted nails anymore, at least, and it’s the best she’s felt the entire night.

“You’re welcome, dear.” Angella’s smile softens. She gazes up and Adora follows suit, looking up at the first moon of the day, now higher in the blue sky. Early morning came and went. “Now, don’t take it for granted, but I’m quite sure the chefs have will have taken a fresh batch of croissants from the oven by now. Any chance you’d be up for joining me for breakfast in the gardens? You must be ravenous after all that movement.” 

Adora’s stomach growls to life as if on cue. “Croissants? Those little, corn shaped pastries?” The only reason she’s not drooling yet is that she is hanging on the last semblance of dignity left in her body. Adora is pretty sure she looks like a puppy wagging its tail, but she’s not thinking with her brain anymore. “You think I can ask them for a double serving of jam?”

Angella hides a chuckle behind her hand. “I’m sure they will be more than happy to do that. They really appreciate your enthusiasm for their cooking,” she says, taking a step closer to brush Adora’s sweaty hair away from her face. She pauses before she can touch her though, blinking rapidly.

“Take a shower first, though,” Angella mutters. She gives Adora an apologetic grin, hands overlapped in front of her body in her usual, composed way. “Please, forgive me for being blunt, but you reek.”

Adora blushes sheepishly, rubbing a hand behind her neck. “Of course,” she says, inching back so she doesn’t crowd the Queen too much. She leans a little on her right leg, and the pain has lessened enough that she can at least shift some weight on it. Maybe she’ll recover sooner than she thought. “Go ahead, Your Majesty, I’ll meet you there.”

Angella nods, pleased, and steps aside to get out Adora’s way. She places a hand on her shoulder as Adora walks past, giving it an affectionate pat.

“Up and at ‘em, soldier.”

* * *

Years later, it’s on the night of the third day after the portal that Adora finds herself thinking about what Angella told her that morning.

She’s on her balcony, staring up at the moons, and stopped crying only a few minutes ago. She doesn’t know how, but she’s pretty sure she ran out of tears to spill. The night chill has long found a home in her bones, biting at her through her clothes, but she doesn’t budge.

She refuses to go back into her room. She can’t stay there, because it feels like the walls are caving in on her, about to crumble in flashes of violent purple light and make her fall in an endless void. And even if that weren’t a problem, she doesn’t think she could block out the echo of Glimmer’s desperate sobs in the quiet of the castle.

She knows she should be in Glimmer’s room, offering her a shoulder to cry on, but she can’t bring herself to face her. She just doesn’t have the courage to look at her in the eyes when she’s the reason Angella is gone. She’s thankful Bow is with her, and he’d even stopped by Adora’s room earlier to tell her, once again, to take it easy for the night, leaving her with a tight hug and a plate of food on her bedside table. It’s still sitting there, untouched, like all the others he’d brought her before.

It’s not his fault, he knows Adora is not going to talk. Besides, he has bigger things to worry about.

After they’d come down from the Runestone’s platform and all the Princesses had given their uncertain tearful goodbyes, the short trip back inside the castle had been a hazy blur. Adora hadn’t even had the time to worry about where Shadow Weaver was going. She just retired in her cell-spare room, saying nothing, but still taking the time to give Adora a look that all but screamed her disappointment in her conduct.

She got captured, which meant she was sloppy. She lost a valuable member of the Rebellion, possibly the most important not counting She-Ra. She failed, and that, in Shadow Weaver’s twisted mind, is the greatest mistake Adora could have made.

Adora didn’t even bother to confront her, just let her cold, white stare crawl under her skin, used to the feeling. She had bigger things to worry about, like trying to look at Glimmer, reach for her, say something, _anything_ that could make her worthy of being in the same room as her again. 

But how could she? Adora fucked everything up, like she always does. So, she let Bow take the lead, followed him through the winding corridors of the palace as he carried Glimmer in his arms, taking slow and measured steps. He kept talking to her, a low and comforting string of words that only got interrupted by the occasional hitch in his breath.

He must have been so scared, so lost, but still did his best to remain supportive, like he always does. Adora wanted to hug him, right then, help him out as much as she could, and tell him she was sorry for putting him in this position. But she couldn’t look at neither of them, so she simply went ahead after they entered Glimmer’s room, running on muscle memory and nothing else, her tears fogging her vision and falling on her boots.

It’s better this way. If she’s left alone, no one will get hurt. She can’t do anything for the people she loves anyway, she never could, so why even try when they’ll get hurt because of her?

_“None of this would have happened if you hadn’t come out of that stupid portal.”_

Yeah, maybe that’s the truth. Maybe Catra -

The hiss that crawls up her throat is vicious, almost animalistic. Simply thinking about that name makes her tense up, nails digging into her palms so hard they leave crescent dents, too blunt to draw blood. The same thing can’t be said for her lip, bitten raw and leaving a coppery taste in her mouth when she runs her tongue over it to soothe the pain. 

Adora can’t afford to think about her. If she does, then she’ll think about the portal, about the stupid fake reality they were all pulled into, and how _natural_ it all felt, like she was exactly where she was meant to be. Bow had tried to ask her, during one of his quick stops, what it had been like for her before she found him and Glimmer. Adora had simply called it a nightmare and left it at that.

Not only because of the decaying reality, the sight of the world around her crumbling into nothingness, her best friends disappearing before her very eyes. She can still feel traces of the deep sense of longing she had long learned to bury, how it had rekindled with startling ease in the space between her ribs as soon as she’d woken up in the Force Captain chamber and Catra had placed her hands on her shoulders, all warm eyes and easy smiles.

And then how everything went to complete shit, the murderous, desperate glint in Catra’s eyes as she tugged Adora closer to the brink of precipice. She pushed Adora to her limit, forced her to finally fight back and stand up for herself. It should’ve felt good, liberating. And it did, for a moment, but looking at Catra’s prone, unconscious body didn’t bring her any joy. She was sad, disappointed. Tired.

How did it come to this, why them? Was it even the time to think about it when the world was reaching its end?

No, of course not. Adora had to move on, fix what got broken. It was her burden to bear. She was fine, really, she had made her peace with the fact that she was the one that had to make the leap. She could do it.

And then she didn’t. 

She would have expected her heart to never stop burning with a blinding inferno of rage after what happened, furious enough to bring the Horde to its knees with just one slash of her sword if she wanted to.

And she does. She desperately does want to crush the Horde and see the Fright Zone fall through She-Ra’s all-encompassing eyes.

Instead, she only feels numb. Catra pulled the lever and activated the portal, she refused to listen to her when they were standing together at the very end of the world. At this point Adora can’t dare to hope she’ll ever change her mind. She tried to reach her, so many times she lost count, and Catra always refused, so why even bother anymore when it’s clear which side she chose. Adora can only try to stop her before she hurts anyone else that gets caught into her unstoppable quest for power.

Power.

She-Ra has heaps of it. When she’s her, Adora feels invincible. Her skin is almost impenetrable, her senses sharper, each muscle and sinew as taut as fire-forged steel. Magic courses in and out of her with the same intensity of a storm. All the power in the universe at the tips of her fingers and still, Adora just can’t seem to be able to make herself useful.

First she led Glimmer and Bow on a wild goose chase in the middle of nowhere that left her with more questions than answers, then she got kidnapped and forced everyone to save her, then she couldn’t stop Hordak and Catra, and then, _then._ Angella _died_. She flew up into the portal core to take back Adora’s stupid sword and gave her life to save Adora’s, whose only purpose was to protect her. Protect the Queen, the Alliance, and all the people faithful to the Rebellion.

And, instead, she only stood there, watching as Angella gave her one, last smile and pulled the Sword out, and saved everyone. All because Adora was just too weak.

Adora sighs, laying her head back against the wall. “I’m sorry I failed you,” she whispers towards the Moonstone, into the empty air. “If I had been stronger, quicker, just... better, nothing would have happened. You’d still be here, and Bright Moon would still have a guide, and Glimmer would _still have her mom_ , and I...” 

She would have been useful for once in her life.

Adora presses the heels of her palms into her eyes, dragging them down. “It should have been me,” she sobs into her own hands. Why Angella chose to take her place is beyond her. She talked about being brave, right before she flew up into the portal. She said Adora inspired her.

Adora feels anything but brave right now, hiding like she is. She wants to be the hero the Queen saw in her, even for a little, but she doesn’t know how. Adora is no pillar of hope, she’s just a letdown that can do no good, even with She-Ra’s powers at her beck and call.

But she _wants_ to be. She wants to give hope to the people that trusted her when they had no reason to, wants to protect them all.

_“Take care of each other.”_

Angella’s last words. Her last wish, thrust into Adora’s clumsy hands. Not a moment goes by that she doesn’t hear it echo in her head, almost tauntingly, reminding her of what she should be doing right now and isn’t: be there for Glimmer, Angella’s daughter, her pride and joy.

She needs to snap out of it. She can’t stay here, wallowing in self-pity when her grief couldn’t possibly measure to Glimmer’s, or the people of Bright Moon, or anyone else that personally knew the Queen. Adora is the one she died for, she doesn’t _get_ to be sad. She can only defend her legacy. 

Adora hangs her head, tries to find her voice and push it out. “But I promised you I’d take care of Glimmer, and I will. I’ll protect her, and the Princesses, and the Rebellion and everyone else. I’ll win the war and stop the Horde once and for all. Your sacrifice won’t be for nothing.”

The howl of the wind is her only answer.

Adora lets it blow across her face, dry her tears and cool her heated skin. She breaths in a steady lungful, getting up to her feet. With a slow exhale, her heart sets. She looks back to the Moonstone, one last time, and closes her eyes, still feeling its mystic glow hitting her eyelids.

“I swear it on my life.”

And she’s off.

She bursts out of the room, shouldering the door so hard she thinks she hears the wood crack. She takes off into a sprint, passing the various guards without looking back. No one stops her. She almost skids past Glimmer’s room in her haste, gripping the handles firmly and shoving the door open.

She runs up the steps to Glimmer’s bed, heart sinking the more she hears muffled cries. Glimmer is not holding onto Bow as much as she’s buried into his arms. Her usual energy, the one that always seems to colour her skin with an healthy glow, is nowhere to be found. Her face is red and blotched, tears falling down already traced paths without stopping. She sounds broken, she _looks_ broken.

“Glimmer...”

Bow’s head snaps up the second Adora opens her mouth. He’s crying, too, he just isn’t making any sound. Adora’s heart bleeds even more. She hadn’t thought about it, not fully. He lost the person that gave him a home away from his parents without ever questioning where he came from, the one that allowed him to be his own person. Angella was a mother to him, too.

It’s already cramped as it is, but Adora falls to her knees, reaches for the both of them. Glimmer heaves a louder sob, unwrapping an arm from Bow’s waist just to curl it around Adora’s instead. Bow shakes, his sniffles muted by the way he tuck his face in Adora’s shoulder. Adora lets herself be moved as they please, simply accommodating their touch and holding them close.

“I’ve got you,” Adora mumbles, and one of them trembles, she doesn’t know who. It doesn’t matter. She doesn’t need to think right now, she just has to act. “Both of you. We’ll get through this, and we’re not losing anyone again. Not if I can do anything about it.”

Bow gives a small nod. Glimmer doesn’t say anything, just keeps crying in Adora’s lap. Adora doesn’t take her eyes off the ceiling, won’t allow herself to shed another tear. This is a reminder of what she was left to protect.

If she didn’t manage to save the Queen, she can still do her best to keep her dream for a better future alive. To make it come true.

It’s the least she can do.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adora faces old memories, makes new ones. 
> 
> It's all very confusing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was planning to upload later this week but I'm gonna be extra busy, so, here. I considered this some sort of interlude in my brain like it's a short bit when actually it's a whole 5k words. I am but a liar. I am doing my best to make this make sense in the context of the series, so this chapter takes place between episodes 8 and 9 of Season 4, "Boys' Night Out" and "Hero". 
> 
> Hit me up on Tumblr with the link at the end if you want to chat or anything, I may not answer right away because I'm a major turtle when it comes to being socially active, even on an internet basis, but I will make sure to be present, I swear. AND PLEASE IF YOU HAPPEN TO LIKE WHATEVER THIS IS, LEAVE A COMMENT. It's a serotonin boost for me, my brain basically runs on feedback, so either positive or negative it's all much appreciated. Oh, next chapter is a big one, so stay tuned if you'd like.
> 
> I'm gonna shut up now, enjoy!

> _“To want is to have a weakness”_ – **Margaret Atwood _(The Handmaid’s Tale)_**
> 
>   
>  _“For dreams, too, are ghosts, desires chased in sleep, gone by morning”_ \- **Lybba Bray**

Adora remembers with distinct clarity the first time she thought Catra was pretty.

As in, more than what is already glaringly obvious. Adora may not be the sharpest blade in the rack, socially speaking, but she has eyes. Eyes that, based on all the health checkups and the sharpshooting evaluation tests she had to take growing up, not to mention her more than excellent results, work quite well, thank you very much.

Despite grimacing and hissing whenever the word would come up, Catra had been almost obnoxiously cute as a child. All peach fuzz and soft skin, with rounded cheeks that would puff up whenever she pouted and eyes that seemed to gleam with a light of their own when she was happy. Adora would have done anything to be the cause of that, and never minded making a fool of herself if it meant getting Catra to laugh.

It had been so easy to miss. After all, they were not the only ones getting older. Rogelio began to grow like a weed sometime after he turned eleven, shooting up at random intervals, and it always took him a while to stop whacking people with his tail after each growth spurt; Lonnie had started to put on pounds of muscle ever since she swallowed her pride (and taste buds) and decided to eat the brown ration bars nobody else was willing to ingest, and Kyle... no, scratch that, he was still Kyle, the only predictable exception.

Adora herself has always been proud of being taller than Catra. She brandished the few inches she had on her like a weapon, often making a show of ruffling Catra’s hair or straining on her tiptoes to rest her chin on her best friend’s head, just for the sake of watching her squirm in discomfort. It hadn’t been a painless process, and Adora would spend months on end trying to cope with aching joints, gangly limbs, and a perpetually growling stomach, but despite all that she always felt like she was growing stronger day after day.

On the other hand, Catra took to the whole teenage thing much more gradually. She didn’t grow up as much as she _bloomed_ into herself, a gradual and smooth process compared to anyone else on the team. She started pushing her unruly hair away from her face with a mask she’d stolen from a batch of confiscated stuff that should have gone straight to the forge. Her features became sharper, her body lean and willowy when she moved with her usual, effortless grace, but still as soft as when she was a kid.

Catra had always been a spitfire and puberty only seemed to enhance that trait of hers, her sarcasm becoming about as deadly as her claws. _No one_ was spared, and she would literally bare her fangs if someone so much as looked at her or Adora the wrong way.

It didn’t stop older cadets, girls and boys alike, from following the natural sway of her hips with way too much interest as she sauntered down the corridors of the Fright Zone like she owned the place, a bored scowl ever present on her face and her hands clasped behind her head.

Adora never understood why, but she hated how their eyes travelled over her best friend’s body like the Horde suddenly decided to serve her on a platter in the mess hall. It didn’t make any sense, the annoyance flaring in her chest, but she figured it wasn’t important because the feeling would dissipate whenever Catra would nudge her softly, sticking her tongue out with a challenging smirk, and promptly race Adora to wherever it was they were going.

At the core of it all, in fact, Catra was simply herself. Sure, she could be a brat at times, and a massive one at that, but she kept a certain softness to her, buried deep down, that the Horde’s harsh ways hadn’t managed to wipe away completely. She would show it in bits, never too much and never all at once, but Adora saw right through her.

It was the little things. Catra shared her rations whenever Adora was too hungry, told stupid jokes and grinned with pride if they made her laugh, massaged Adora’s knuckles the times she spent too much time beating up punching bags, grouched all the time when winter rolled around and the Fright Zone turned into a prison of freezing metal, but never forgot to climb a bit higher on Adora’s bed to keep the cold away.

That never changed, _Catra_ never changed. Barely three and fresh out of a cardboard box, or fifteen and teasing Adora about whether or not she’d glued on her hair poof for the day, she stayed the same.

That’s why Adora was so blindsided when things started shifting, and on a completely normal day to boot.

They had just finished training and Adora remembers it being one of the most gruelling sessions the team had ever had since they’d been promoted to sophomore cadets. She and Catra were the last ones standing, and the second the last of the bots had disappeared into one of the dark pits, they collapsed on the floor, panting, absolutely spent from their joint effort at completing the task.

Catra was sprawled next to her, breathless and giddy off of their success, whining about how much Adora always seemed to slow her down with no real bite in her tone. Clueless, Adora had let her head loll to the side to dish her fair share of teasing right back, only for her jaw to drop so quickly it almost hurt.

Catra was already looking at her, chest heaving, her mouth parted as she sucked in lungful after lungful of air. The grin playing at her lips allowed Adora to catch a glimpse of her fangs, pearly white under the fluorescent lights of the training area. Even with her mask on, her hair was falling in waves into her face. Her bangs were sticking to her forehead, thick strands that Adora loved to run her hands through, and true to form her fingers felt suddenly restless with the need to push them away from Catra’s beautiful eyes. 

Her eyes. Blue and golden gems that Adora always thought were the brightest feature of the Fright Zone. She liked how they flashed when they sparred, as Catra flawlessly calculated every move and jump and minute shift she had to make. The intelligent gleam that shined in her irises when she was planning a prank, or helped Adora revise for Advanced Battle Tactics and would come up with strategies that could turn a hopeless situation around in a matter of minutes despite never paying attention during class.

Adora felt weird. It was like when Kyle had rammed his baton staff in her solar plexus by mistake and she hadn’t been able to breathe properly for at least ten minutes. Catra’s rampage of revenge had been interrupted by a wheezing Adora dismissing the entire thing as an accident. It still hadn’t stopped her from targeting Kyle with spitballs and hiding his socks in the vents for a week straight.

She wanted to lift her arm and wrap it around Catra’s slim waist. She wanted to get closer, touch Catra’s face, curl around her, bury her face in her hair. She wanted to... Adora didn’t know what, she didn’t even know why, but she wanted _more._

Adora was so lost in thought that she hadn’t noticed Catra was getting up, looking tiredly down at her, and muttering something about missing brain cells before offering her a hand. Adora had jumped up to her feet like she’d been zapped, and the spell was broken, if only temporarily.

It only got worse later, in the locker rooms. Adora had long finished showering and was in the process of slipping on a clean shirt, a post-workout ration bar already halfway in her mouth, when Catra slithered next to her, seemingly out of nowhere, grumbling about how freezing cold the showers always were.

That hadn’t been the surprise, because Catra had a penchant for being sneaky and was lighter on her feet than Adora could ever hope to be. Rather, it had been the sight she found waiting for her when she turned that made her forget which way was left and which was right.

Hair dark and wet and slicked back away from her face. Freckles that stood out under the harsh lighting of the locker room, scattered over her cheeks and shoulders, her brown skin smooth and glistening under her short layer of fur. Just a towel wrapped around her torso, clinging to subtle curves and exposing miles of legs that Adora had never noticed, and didn’t know what to think of now that she had. Catra smelled incredible, her natural scent better than whatever chemical their soap bars were made of.

Catra was talking to her, leaning casually with her shoulder against her locker, and Adora had no clue what she was saying because all her attention was dedicated to tracking the path a small droplet of water was tracing down the sharp curve of Catra’s face. It ran down her jaw, her neck, the defined divot of her collarbones before disappearing under the hem of the towel.

The hem of the towel Adora was blatantly staring at. She swallowed, mouth completely dry and blood pumping in her ears, a sensation that reminded her of running drills in the heat of summer. That’s when the bite she had forgotten to properly munch lodged itself in her throat, and Adora suddenly couldn’t breathe for a whole another reason.

It had gotten Catra to laugh at least, once they were both sure Adora was not going to suffocate and die like a moron in front of her best friend. She would have never lived it down.

But that was in the past, feels like a lifetime ago. Adora had promptly buried whatever the hell that had been in the back of her mind, and things turned normal again. She had much bigger things to worry about anyway, training hard to become a Force Captain and live up to her potential like all her teachers always said above anything else. And then she’d found the sword and nothing was ever the same.

Still, the sight that had seared itself in her memory that day is child’s play compared to _this_.

Adora lays on her side, staring wide eyed at the familiar figure that’s sleeping peacefully just out of reach. It’s warm in the room, but a cooling breeze blowing from somewhere behind her back prevents it from being totally uncomfortable. She doesn’t remember the last time she felt this relaxed.

Bronze skin and fur, smooth curves and lean muscles framed by a pair of boy shorts and a cropped tank top. Dark tresses in disarray, longer than Adora has ever seen them, spread across the pillows in wavy curls. She maps with her eyes the visible groove marked by a spine until she’s met with the base of a tail. She doesn’t need to follow its length to know where it ends, can feel how soft it is over the bare skin of her foot as if the way their legs are tangled weren’t enough to hammer home what she’s seeing.

Catra. In her bed, sleeping in front of her.

There’s a small shift, the murmur of a sleepy mewl. Adora holds her breath as a bright blue eye blinks groggily back at her, something that she remembers seeing first thing in the morning every day since the first time they’d started sharing a bunk.

When she turns, Catra immediately scoots closer and tucks her head under Adora’s chin. She nuzzles her nose in her neck and slinks up, rubbing her cheek to the underside of Adora’s jaw as a steady, subdued purr tumbles out of her chest in an unguarded display of affection. She hasn’t done that so freely since they were kids, too scared someone would walk in and force them apart.

Adora’s hand grips onto the fabric of Catra’s top, slips underneath it to run it over her lower back, her hips, her shoulder blades, wherever she can reach. Her other arm, the one that’s being used as a pillow, bends around Catra’s head as she cards her fingers through wild locks. It’s not a conscious decision by any means. She should be holding a knife to Catra’s throat right now and screaming for the guards to come and throw her in the nearest guest room-turned-prison cell, but she won’t do any of that. She doesn’t want to.

Catra looks... comfortable here, _in Bright Moon_ of all places. Peaceful, even. She’s letting herself be held, and Adora can’t find it in her heart to take that away from her. She’s just not strong enough.

She refuses to blink. She keeps her eyes trained onto the top of Catra’s head, twisting away only when her ears start to twitch in her face. She hears the raspy sound of a chuckle, muffled against her skin, and she knows then that Catra is doing it on purpose.

She’s such an ass, and Adora missed this more than she can possibly know. She missed her best friend.

“Caught you staring,” Catra says, pulling back just a bit. She’s still close enough that Adora could easily count each and every freckle on her face. She knew the number by heart before leaving the Horde, and now she’s curious to see if there are new ones. Catra shifts a little, stretching her legs first, then her back and her arms in one fluid movement. It makes the strap of her top slide down her shoulder, and Adora numbly realises that it used to be one of her shirts, cut unevenly by sharp claws.

She’s much more focused on how inexplicably right it feels to see Catra wearing her clothes, the way the sight makes tingling flickers of warmth dance in her stomach. It’s a possessive feeling that, normally, would scare her, but she’d be lying to herself if she said it doesn’t make her heart feel like it’s lodged permanently in her throat.

Adora raises a trembling hand, places it on Catra’s face slowly. She doesn’t let her palm relax until she meets her warm skin, and it takes Catra’s hand closing over hers to get her to stop shaking.

“You’re not really here,” Adora whispers, even as her thumb runs over the length of Catra’s cheekbone, tracing reverent circles on its way. The lighter tufts of hair that she used to have are gone, just like they were the last time they saw each other in Elberon, and Adora can’t help but miss the way they always felt soft when she did this, brushing against the back of her knuckles. “I’m dreaming. I must be dreaming.”

“I still can’t believe it either,” Catra admits, one of her ears drooping a little as her face grow serious. She pokes a finger into Adora’s side. “Talk to me, dummy.”

Adora feels hazy, her vision fogged around the edges. The way the morning light seeps through the drapes surrounding her bed, it makes the dim glow around them appear almost purple in colour. The hues of Catra’s eyes shift accordingly: the yellow one looks almost gold, while the blue one seems darker, like the deeper part of the ocean. She blinks a couple of times, slowly, eyelids still heavy with sleep, and seeing her so visibly _at home_ makes something in Adora’s chest stutter.

“I don’t know what to say,” Adora says, shaking her head a little. Her eyes are starting to burn and water, and she closes them on instinct to fight the sting. The small sigh that she lets out when she opens them again and Catra has not disappeared is filled to capacity with relief. “I never thought... why now? I was waiting for you to join the Rebellion for ages, and _now_ you’re here? Just like that?”

Catra gulps, her eyes leaving Adora’s and landing somewhere behind her shoulder. Adora grits her teeth, her entire body tensing as she lowers her head, going eye to eye with Catra. “Answer me.”

“I... _I’m sorry,_ ” Catra squirms a little, looking everywhere but at her. She’s grimacing, regret etched clear as day all over her features. “I will leave, if you want me to,” she says at last, her voice breaking around her quiet whisper. “I’ve been so awful to you. I know I hurt you and you hate me, not that I can blame you. It’s hard not to.”

Adora feels as if her entire body has been dropped in freezing water. Her chest seizes up, breath knocked out of her lungs like someone just sucker punched her in the gut.

“I-I don’t,” she stammers, and while she can’t tell her she’s wrong, hearing _Catra_ , of all people, say that still makes her sick in the stomach, fills her with such a feeling of anguish she can barely stand it. “Catra, no, I… you hurt me. You hurt me a lot. And I was angry at you, I still am, but I never… _not you._ ”

That’s all it boils down to, in a sense.

It’s Catra.

Adora would never, _could_ never hate her, even if she tried. And she did, she desperately tried because it would have been so much easier to fight Catra if she didn’t constantly feel like there was a hole in her heart the size of the planet that, no matter how loved and welcomed everyone made her feel, she could never really fix. Even after the portal, when she’d been so furious, so disappointed, and most of all, just so _done_ with Catra’s bullshit, she _never_ hated her.

Adora doesn’t know what that means, but it probably has to do with the fact that she’s a failure of a hero and the most hopeless of idiots. “I don’t hate you, Catra. Don’t say that.”

Catra sniffles, lips wobbling as she tries not to cry. “I thought you did.” Adora’s vision blurs, the plush fabric of the pillow growing humid under her cheek, and she realises with a start that she’s been silently crying for a while. “You were the only one that cared for me back then. When you left, I... I thought I didn’t matter to you anymore. That I was just as rotten and unlovable as Shadow Weaver always said, that you’d grown tired of me and you didn’t want me and-“

“Catra, no, you matter so much. _You’re_ so much, I never got to tell you before and I’m so sorry,” Adora rushes to say, holding on Catra’s face so tightly that her fingers dig forcefully into her skin, but Catra, if anything, leans into it even more. “Stay here with me, we’ll figure it out together, alright? I promise. _I promise you,_ ” she swears, hoping that for once in her life Catra will listen.

Catra’s sobs grow louder and Adora shushes her, gently, their knees knocking together when she tries to get even closer. “It’s going to be okay. You hear me? We’ll be okay.”

“We’ll be okay” Catra repeats, hot tears dripping down her cheek onto Adora’s fingers. There’s so much pain and regret in her warm eyes, Adora wants nothing more than to take it all away and make it better, make Catra feel safe and loved like she should have done since they were kids. “Adora, it’s been so hard...”

“I know,” Adora nods, thinking back at all the times she laid awake at night hearing the phantom sound of Catra’s breathing echoing in her room, the way her bed felt so empty without her body curled up at the foot of the mattress, how her jokes that were a bit too dark for Bow and Glimmer would have made Catra tear up in laughter and call her a dork.

“I missed you so much,” Adora is hearing herself say those words for the first time in years. She kept them locked for so long she has become numb to the way they always seemed to claw at her chest whenever she would see Catra on the battlefield. Now, it’s like they found a home in the still air around them, free to linger in the private confines of the bedroom.

Adora was raised a warrior, but fighting Catra goes against her very nature. Having her so close again is like giving in to an instinct she has stubbornly learned to suppress. She found her missing puzzle piece at the ripe age of three, lost it at seventeen, and resigned herself to the idea of living the rest of her life without it.

Until now. 

Catra pulls her in by her shoulder, or maybe it’s Adora that surges forward. It doesn’t matter. Catra sinks into the mattress, flat on her back, and her arms wrap around Adora’s neck. She latches onto her, hands trailing down her jaw and burying her fingers in loose, blonde locks. Adora’s mouth falls open in muted surprise when Catra’s legs part to welcome her hips and they’re suddenly pressed together, head to toe, not an inch of space between them except for their clothes.

She doesn’t know what she’s doing, only than nothing feels even remotely close enough. Adora buries her face in Catra’s neck and breathes, tries to take in as much of her as she can. All of her senses narrow down to this little universe that’s formed between the two of them, where nothing hurts and she won’t need food or water to survive. This is all she needs. Catra is here and the world has finally stopped spinning faster than Adora can keep up with.

“Adora. H-hey, Adora, look at me,” Catra pleads, tugging delicately at her hair. Adora whines, unwilling to move, until Catra’s voice reaches her ears once more, vulnerable in a way that she hasn’t heard in years, or maybe ever. “Don’t let me go.”

“I won’t,” she promises, softly, pushing away to look into Catra’s eyes to show her that she means it, that she’s never been so sure of something in her entire life. The swell of her pupils beckons Adora in like a siren’s song. She leans down, leans in, to let her forehead rest over Catra’s, and she’d be happy to stay like this for the rest of her life.

But Catra, with her frustratingly brilliant mind, is always one step ahead of her, and this time it’s no different. She cups her hands around Adora’s cheek, claws retracted, and pulls her down until they’re breathing each other’s air and Adora can taste Catra’s quiet pants over her lips, feel the rise and fall of her chest when she arches into her. She closes her eyes just as the tip of Catra’s button nose start to push into her wet cheek, and _they’re so close, and-_

A violent, sudden jolt rips through Adora’s body and she’s thrust back, away from that perfect warmth her mind had lost its way into. Her eyes slam open and she struggles to sit up with a strangled cry, her muscles contracted almost painfully as her lungs spasm for air. Adora chokes on her own spit, her feet skidding on the pavement when she tries, and fails, to find some kind of grip.

“Apologies for disrupting your rest, Adora.”

Adora’s head whips around and she screams again when she comes face to face with Light Hope. She’s in the Crystal Castle, laying on the floor. It’s so cold she can feel it seeping through the skin-tight material of her compression shirt. She vaguely remembers covering herself with her jacket before falling asleep, but she must have thrown it somewhere in her fidgeting. The Sword, turned into her customary bracelet, weighs like lead on her left wrist. She can feel the slight pulse of the Runestone thrumming over her skin, reacting to her distress.

“Light Hope,” Adora pants, crawling back until she comes to a stop with her back resting against a larger clump of crystals. She’s sweating, breath stuck in the middle of her chest, and her heart just won’t slow down. “What… what was that-“

“I couldn’t help but notice an alarming spike in your heart rate during your slumber. I became concerned, so I sent an electrical current into your system to make sure you wouldn’t suffer from a sudden heart attack,” she explains extending an arm towards the floor. A beam of blue light shines over Adora for a brief moment, gone before she can even process it.

Light Hope stands perfectly still, looking down with those empty eyes of hers. “Your body temperature is elevated and you’re still displaying symptoms of tachycardia. It appears the small shock was not completely effective. Should I try again?”

“S-Small?” Adora pushes herself up to her feet in a fit of rage. Her knees give in almost immediately and she braces herself against the rocks, sputtering out a curse. The numb feeling in her legs doesn’t want to go away. “I thought I was going to die!”

Light Hope makes a noncommittal hum, more of a droned out buzz with her lack of tonality. She turns around, begins to move back to the centre of the room. “Apologies again, Adora. Usually, that amount of electricity is enough to reboot the mainframe of the Crystal Castle, but I made sure to be quick. I didn’t want to risk using an inadequate voltage and fail to prevent cardiovascular complications.”

“A mainframe- wha- _I am not a machine_ Light Hope!” Adora shrieks, slamming her palm on the crystal in frustration. It breaks with a resounding crack, fissures opening on its surface like vessels. Finally confident she won’t fall, she flings herself forward, marching up to Light Hope and rounding her to catch her eye again. “Why did you make me see that?”

Light Hope stops, tilts her head just a little. “I do not understand your query.”

“Is it a new type of training you didn’t tell me about?” Adora presses on, curling her hands into fists. They can’t stop trembling. She must sound crazy, with how fast she’s talking, but she’s way past the point of caring since Light Hope couldn’t possibly understand anyway. “Some kind of visual simulation? Are you using my memories against me?”

 _Again,_ she wants to add, but doesn’t, lets the word burn the tip of her tongue and swallows down the retort. Her right hand clenches and releases around nothing but the phantom feeling of soft fur and even softer skin.

All she gets in response is a laconic, “I do not understand your query.”

Adora feels her jaw grow slack. Her knees go weak again, but this time it has nothing to do with the shock still dissipating from her body and more with the way her heart can’t seem to slow down. She sits in front of Light Hope, grabbing her head in her hands.

She hadn’t even meant to fall asleep. Bright Moon these days feels more like a palace sized battlefield than a home. She can barely stand to spend time in the same room as Glimmer, let alone actually try and talk to her. The other Princesses know, and do their best to keep a positive attitude, but there’s little they can do to help. And Bow... he tries. He tries so hard to keep the peace, bless his heart, but it’s just not the same anymore.

Adora can’t get any rest there, Glimmer’s frustrated, angry words gnawing at her resolve to forget and move on every time she closes her eyes. She’d thought she could get some peace and quiet here, but clearly she was wrong.

Having dreams about Catra is something that’s never going to stop happening, and Adora has already come to terms with that. Most of them blur together and, honestly, she can’t even remember what the last few ones had been about, but she’s sure that none of them were so... _they had been different._ She shouldn’t be thinking of her like that. She shouldn’t be thinking of her _at all_ , let alone dream of the current Force Commander of the Horde in her bed, pressed into the sheets under her body and looking at her like Adora personally hung the moons in the sky, for some reason she can’t even begin to comprehend.

It’s wrong. Adora feels vile, like she just betrayed the cause she’s been fighting so long for. She’s not supposed to feel anything towards Catra, not after all that’s happened between them, so why is her brain betraying her like this, making her crave for her presence even more than what she’s used to?

“What are you doing to me?” she murmurs, though to whom, she’s not quite sure of. Maybe to Catra, maybe to herself. She feels like she’s losing her mind.

“I am not doing anything.” Light Hope stares down at her, actually looking puzzled for once, and she extends a hand to produce a small, glowing orb with a flat line running through its middle. A recorder. “It seems that this dream you were having was quite upsetting. I could scan your brain waves and replicate it in a simulation to help you move past the limits of your comfort zone. As She-Ra, you must be prepared for any-“

Adora groans, waving her off before she launches into yet another tangent that would for sure get on her nerves even more. And the less she thinks about that dream, the better. “You know what, forget it. Run whatever battle you had in program, I don’t care which,” she bites her lip in thought, closing her eyes for a moment. Despite the nap, exhaustion is catching up to her fast.

No time to rest.

“Maximum difficulty.”

Light Hope nods, the scenery around them already changing. Adora recognises the purple cliffs, the deep azure of the ocean, the impossibly detailed decorations of the arches supporting the Sea Gate. Salineas. She can already see Horde ships looming over the horizon. “Very well. Are you ready to resume your training?”

Adora sighs through clenched teeth, her chest still a bit achy from the heavy breaths. She clambers back to her feet, willing the sword to morph into its original form, and lifts it above her head, shoulders squared and muscles tensed. The hilt always feels warm in her palms, like the metal was made to mould according to her touch. A perfect fit for her hand, like she was born to do this. To fight and breathe and bleed for the greater good of Etheria.

She hates the feeling more than what she’s comfortable admitting, even to herself.

“For the Honour of Grayskull!”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nights on Darla are usually quiet, uneventful. 
> 
> Not this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a big _big_ one, I apologize to your retinas in advance.

> _“Perhaps life is just that... a dream and a fear”_ – **Joseph Conrad**
> 
> _“Hope is a waking dream.”_ ― **Aristotle**

"Excellent work, Adora.”

Adora does not answer. She can’t lift her head, can’t close her eyes, can’t even breathe properly without feeling like she’s being torn apart from the inside. She’s on her knees and she can’t move. She can still feel the burn of the Heart’s magic streaming under her skin, seizing her bones, her muscles, her brain in a raging inferno. She can barely think, nothing but the erratic beat of her pulse in her ears. It’s almost loud enough to overwhelm Light Hope’s voice.

Almost.

“The Heart of Etheria was successfully set off despite the destruction of the Sword Of Protection.”

Light Hope’s words echo in the emptiness Adora found herself in when she opened her eyes. A ruined land, nothing but ash and debris covering the scorched ground. The only fading light around comes from her own body, overloaded by that paralyzing flow of magic even after she shifted back into herself. She’s Adora again, She-Ra gone for good, and she’s vulnerable.

Defeated.

“Congratulations, She-Ra. You have fulfilled your purpose.”

Adora is barely listening. She takes in the geometrical shapes branded on her right arm, how they twist around her wrists all the way up to the tips of her fingers. Her hand feels numb, but she can’t seem to be able to uncurl her fingers and stop clutching the golden hilt of the sword. She rests her eyes on the broken edges of the crystal blade she smashed on the ground just a couple of minutes ago, still glowing with all the colours of the rainbow.

She did it. Adora broke the sword in the end, but it still wasn’t enough. She wasn’t enough.

She was so close, she’d almost resisted Light Hope’s command, but the Heart’s pull was too strong. She couldn’t do it. And her friends paid the price for her mistakes, like they always do. They’re all around her, lying in lifeless heaps with their bodies beaten and torn and singed from the explosion.

Sea Hawk was holding Mermista when it happened, and they’re so close that she can’t tell whose blood belongs to who. Frosta’s eyes are shut, like she’s sleeping, and she looks so young like this, barely older than a kid. Perfuma lays in a bed of decaying flowers, with Scorpia a few feet from her, her shell cracked and splintering. Netossa is half propped up, held upright - or maybe together - by her own nets like a puppet, and Spinnerella has her head in her lap, clinging to her limp hand. Entrapta is half hidden under one of Swift Wind’s broken wings, her hair strewn all around her, mouth open in a soundless, final exhale.

Closest to Adora are Bow and Glimmer. They’re reaching for each other’s hands, not touching, their fingers a breath apart. They’re lying face down, heads turned to the side, and they’re both looking right at her, eyes wide and scared and unblinking and... _betrayed._

“I’m sorry...”

Adora was supposed to protect them. She was supposed to protect them all, and she let them down. Not just her friends, but the entire planet, the entire universe was counting on her to make the right move, to not screw up for once in her useless life, and yet she went ahead and did just that. She fulfilled the destiny that was set in stone for her.

Same old, weak, predictable Adora.

“And here I thought you couldn’t get anymore pathetic.”

Adora keeps her unfocused eyes firmly on the white-clad feet that have appeared in front of her. She doesn’t have the strength to look up, doesn’t even have the courage to. It’s not her choice to make, though, because a clawed hand grips her chin and tilts it up, forcing her to stare into glowing pools of green.

It’s Catra.

Actually, no. Her body is bent and wrecked, blood spilling down her face and onto her torn, white uniform from a crack in her skull. Not a single bone in her body must have survived the fall. Her mouth is twisted into a wide, unnatural grin, one that stretches so far it makes her eyes crinkle forcefully. They look like beacons against the darkness that surrounds them, white pupils burning like twin stars.

This is not Catra at all.

“Hello, Adora.”

“No...” Adora sobs pitifully, a disgusting mix of snot and tears trickling down her face. She’s crying so hard her vision is blurry, and she can barely make out the sunken contours of Catra’s face. Her skin is paler than it’s ever been, arms marred with scratches of her own doing. She’s little more than a walking corpse. “No, no, no, not this, not her, please-“

Adora doesn’t even have the strength to wrench herself free from Horde Prime’s grip. Catra’s claws are digging into her cheeks but she doesn’t feel it. It’s nothing, barely a pinprick compared to the way her heart seems to be shattering more and more in her chest every second that passes by.

Everything is broken, ruined irreparably.

The sword, the world, the promises she made to her friends, to Catra, to the people of Etheria, to Mara. She-Ra is gone, she left her for good. And the punch line is that Adora can’t blame anyone but herself. If she’s being honest, she’s surprised it took her so long to screw up this badly.

“Some hero you are, Adora,” the voice bears only a distant semblance to Catra’s raspy one, drowned and distorted by Horde Prime’s velvety tone. It slithers through the air like a snake in the grass, crawls into Adora’s ears and worms its way into her head. She’s going to be sick. “Your friends are dead, your planet is a wasteland, and at long last you let your Catra down one time too many.” The grin on Catra’s face widens until it turns into a snarl. “As a vessel she’s mediocre at best, but it still makes quite the impact, doesn’t it?”

“I’m gonna destroy you,” Adora seethes, feeling the acidic taste of bile creeping up her tongue. Catra’s claws are coated with blood and the smell fills Adora’s nose so strongly she has to keep herself from gagging. “I will make you wish you killed me sooner. I will break every single bone in your body. I don’t care what it takes, I’m dragging you to hell myself if I have to-“

“And hurt your precious Catra even more?” Prime coos, and Adora freezes, breath stuck in her throat like barbed wire. Droplets of blood fall from Catra’s hair, trickling down her face, but she doesn’t even blink. “Oh, child, don’t be foolish. You lost,” he raises Catra’s hand and slowly begins to count down each twisted finger. “You lost the battle, lost your friends, lost the war. There is no one else left for you in this world. You’re _alone_.”

“For the Honour of Grayskull!” Adora cries out, but nothing happens, no magic flowing through her veins or divine power to help her escape this hell she found herself into. Maybe she was destined to fail all along. If only the Sword had chosen someone else, someone worthy of its power, then nothing bad would have ever happened. “F-for the Honour of-!”

The hand titling her chin closes around her throat in a flash, squeezing sharply, and lifts her like she weighs nothing. Adora gasps, digging her nails into Catra’s arm, and tries to plant her foot behind her to push back, but finds herself meeting empty air. Somehow the wasteland that once was Etheria turned into the sleek green interiors of Prime’s flagship. Adora has nowhere left to run, one foot dangling in the void, the other barely touching the edge of the platform of Horde Prime’s throne room.

“Ah, yes, your catchphrase. How adorable.” As he looks at her up and down, Catra’s tail swishes behind him in a movement that Adora knows well. It would do it every time Catra got curious about something, and it came hand in hand with an excited smile and the sound of her footsteps as she ran the halls of the Fright Zone, Adora hot on her heels, following the tip of her tail like the needle of a compass. 

Adora desperately tries to cling to that memory, even as Catra’s face gets closer, a breath away from hers, all teeth and none of Catra in the sneer that takes over her face.

“What, no light show? Disappointing.”

Prime lets go.

Adora doesn’t even have the time to scream that she is airborne, and she’s tumbling down in the dark, falling, _falling_ , _falling-_

Adora slams to the ground so hard the air is completely knocked out of her lungs.

“ _Fuck_ ,” she wheezes, sputtering around a cough. Her head crashed on the floor so hard she’s surprised she didn’t puncture a hole through it, and the arm she landed on is in no better condition, but both have nothing on how constricted her chest feels, like a vice is squeezing and squeezing and not letting up. “Fucking fuck, my head...”

She struggles to get back on her feet, high on adrenaline and fear, and it takes her a couple of seconds to fight the visceral instinct to run away. Adora presses herself to the wall, swivelling her head around to take in what surrounds her. Metal walls, purplish lights, the steady hum of a centuries old engine. Darla. Her backpack and clothes folded on the floor a few feet from the bed, some First Ones’ scrolls and manuals thrown around, a plate with leftovers from dinner. Her room.

The room she shares with- 

“Mmh, ‘dora?” A soft mumble from the bed quiets the racing thoughts in her head, if only for a moment. She looks down to face the bundle that’s slowly beginning to stir and turn her way. Catra, ever the light sleeper, has her head tilted in her direction, leaning on one elbow with the covers bunched around her waist. One of her ears droops slightly under the pull of exhaustion, twitching every now and then. “What’s it... ‘s going on?“

Her eyes flutter open, blinking slowly. Blue and yellow. Not green. No blood on her claws, no scratches on her arms. Adora could seriously cry, the wave of relief that sweeps over her almost enough to bring her to her knees again. She forces herself to breathe, through her nose and out of her mouth, over and over until her heart begins to slow down.

Every part of her yearns to climb back on the bed, take Catra and crush her to her chest, to run her hands all over her to make sure she’s okay. She wants to hold and be held in return, aches for the type of comfort that only Catra has ever been able to give her. Instead, Adora plasters herself back against the wall, clenching every muscle in her body not to give in to her impulses. 

Catra has been manhandled, caged, stripped of her own agency too many times to count. Adora will never be a part of that cycle again if she can do anything about it, and refuses to use her when she’s at her most vulnerable and would struggle to push her away. She can’t even believe she thought of it, how selfish she is being.

“Noth- _shit_.” She rolls her shoulder with care, grimacing at the muted cracks her joint makes. The pain starts dissipating after a couple of seconds, unlike the one in her head. She’s probably going to need ice for that. “Nothing, I’m okay.”

Catra scoffs, or at least she tries to, because what comes out is heavy and drowsy, more similar to a sigh than anything else. “Y’ don’t sound ‘kay.” 

She’s not. She can still feel the phantom feeling of the Heart’s magic running through her veins, and Prime’s cold fingers grasping her face, and the smell of Catra’s blood in her nose-

“I’m _fine_.” She hopes her voce doesn’t sound as scared as she hears it, even when it cracks at the edges. She takes a step closer, then another. “I’m just a bit dizzy from the fall. Go back to sleep, I’m gonna grab something for my head and a glass of water. Be right back.”

Before Catra can protest, Adora sinks her fingers in her hair, scratching softly over her scalp. It’s a dirty trick, the oldest one in her book, but the sound that it draws from Catra’s pouty lips, a little puff of air that manages to be both disgruntled and needy, makes it all worth it. Catra all but melts under her touch as she settles back onto her pillow, curling up in that adorable way of hers as the rumble of a purr begins to vibrate in her chest.

Adora smiles down at her, letting her hand trail along her cheek and jaw before she bunches the sheet up to Catra’s chin and exits the room as quietly as she can. She allows herself to groan in frustration only when she’s halfway down the corridor, pushing the heels of her palms against her eyes so hard she starts to see splashes of colour.

Catra was finally starting to recover from the effects of the chip, getting flashes much more rarely, and it was like her body was trying to catch up on all the hours of sleep she’d missed since being captured by Prime. Adora suspects her insomnia to be much older than what Catra had been willing to share, but she won’t pry when it’s clearly such an exposed wound.

It’s been a little over a week, and while she still wakes up almost every night because of the nightmares, Adora is always there to help in any way she can, offering back rubs or ear scratches, and even when Catra curls away from her touch, she stays close, respecting her boundaries and simply talking her through her episodes. It’s getting easier and easier for Catra to fall back asleep after each night, and Adora has gotten used to waking up to her face buried into the pillow, purr-like snores harmonising with Darla’s muted humming.

And now, just when it looked like Catra was this close to getting a full night’s sleep for the first time in ages, Adora went ahead and ruined it. She should do everyone a favour and fling herself into the nearest black hole.

She speeds up, padding swiftly into the kitchen. She downs a glass of water, then another one, and her throat finally stops feeling like she swallowed a mouthful of sand. She finds no ice, though, and she curses her rotten luck as stumbles around in the dark and leaves, feeling a headache already brewing.

A sound echoing in the hallway stops her dead in her tracks. It comes from the opposite way she arrived from, but even if she’s doggone tired, Adora doesn’t feel like sleeping anytime soon, so she sticks her hands in the pockets of her shorts and follows the noise, all the way to the bridge.

What she finds doesn’t surprise her at all.

A dark lump is poking halfway out of a fissure on the far left side of the dashboard, right below the control panel. Purple tendrils move around her, holding calculators, a tool box, notepads and a myriad of other gadgets. Adora can hear that low sound much more clearly in the quiet of the bridge. Whistling, out-of-tune and familiar.

“Entrapta?”

The figure goes still and slowly turns. When their eyes meet, Adora catches the glimpse of a guilty grin, teeth almost blindingly white compared to the dark stains of motor oil smeared over the bridge of her nose.

“Uhm, nooooo....” Entrapta slides her work mask over her face, lowering her voice to a deeper octave. “This is not Entrapta you’re speaking to. I’m merely an inspector making rounds to check if Darl- if this marvellous piece of technology I’m _definitely_ not tinkering with is on par with the hygienic norms of the... spaceship rule-book I’m sure exists-“

“I won’t tell Bow,” Adora interrupts her as softly as she can. Though she doesn’t have the energy to deal with an Entrapta in full crazy scientist mode, she doesn’t want him to be on the verge of yet another nervous breakdown (that laugh still gives her the creeps). Besides, last she’d seen him he was slumped over Glimmer’s lap in the bunk room, both snoring to their hearts’ content. She’d hate herself forever if she disturbed them now.

“Oh, great!” Entrapta stops herself short after that, slamming a lock of hair over her own mouth when Adora shushes her with panicked gestures towards the hallway. The strands move to her cheek, scratching over it lightly in a gestures that all but spells how sheepish she feels. “Oops, sorry. Great.”

“Where’s Wrong Hordak?”

“Keeping an eye on Bow and Glimmer to make sure they don’t wake up,” Entrapta says brazenly, looking up some kind of equation or who knows what on a scrap of paper. She catches herself a moment later. “I mean. Sleeping.”

Adora just nods, moving to sit cross legged into the frame of one of the side windows. “What are you up to?”

“Oooooh, well, I thought I could improve Darla’s connectivity if I synched her signal emitter with the frequency pattern of Etheria’s electromagnetic field that I managed to reproduce on my tracker pad. That way we should be able not only to contact home more easily if we needed to, but we could also-“

Entrapta starts shooting off at the mouth a mile a minute. Adora does her best to follow, but between still being somewhat shaken from her sudden awakening, how tired she feels, and Entrapta being... well, _Entrapta_ , she gets lost a couple of times. And then a couple more.

It must show on her face, because Entrapta trails off with a look on her face that borders between hopeful and resigned. “Did you catch any of that?”

Adora grins sheepishly. She trusts Entrapta’s mechanical prowess and genius, and literally no one else she knows, except maybe Bow, could make Darla function as smoothly as she does. On the other hand, just the other day she wanted to toy with the burner alimenting the ship’s main engine, all to check if she could increase the power of the thrusters. _“A fifty-fifty chance of success”,_ she’d said, _”we may explode if I fail, though.”_

Glimmer had threatened to tie her in the cargo hold until they landed home.

“The general gist of it. It’s not like I’m worried, you know your stuff.” That’s a half truth, but nobody needs to know. “I couldn’t sleep anyway, at least I’ll be here if something goes wrong.”

Entrapta’s eyebrows shoot upwards. “Nightmares?” she asks, humming curiously when Adora nods. “I thought you were sleeping better.”

Hearing that catches Adora completely off guard. “I was. I mean, I am,” she stutters, surprised that anyone else has even noticed. The bags under her eyes basically started to become semi-permanent a little while after the beginning of the war, it’s not like she changed anything in her appearance that may indicate she’s getting more rest. “Wait, how do you know?”

Entrapta makes an excited whoop, pulling one of her data pads to herself and pressing a few keys before turning it towards Adora. A graph pops up on the screen.

“Your reaction timing has sped up by a notable 3.56 percent,” she explains, pointing to a red line that starts off parallel to the x-axis only to rear up abruptly for its last section. “It’s most clear whenever you engage in playful physical contact with Catra and you two chase each other around the ship.” Another rapid press of buttons and a calendar appears. “It’s been happening since the day you began to share your room with her after I removed the chip. I must conclude the two facts are related.“

Adora stares. She opens her mouth to speak. Then closes it. Then opens it again.

“I- we used to sleep in the same bed. Catra and I. Part of me finds it... calming, I guess?” She doesn’t know why she feels the need to justify herself, but Entrapta’s gaze is unrelenting, and it makes her face feel hot the more she blabbers on. “During our days in the Horde, she would come down to my bunk. It was the only way I’d stop falling out of bed. Apparently I move around a lot.”

“I’m sure you’re aware this attachment doesn’t extend only to your sleeping arrangement,” Entrapta points out, like it’s the easiest thing in the world, and if Adora was puzzled before, now she’s thrown for an entire other loop. “Yesterday, 12:46 in the afternoon, Etherian Standard Time, you offered to prepare lunch and Catra followed you. 13:58 in the afternoon, E. S. T, Glimmer kicked you both out of the kitchen because you started a food fight. There are still flour footprints all the way to the bathroom-”

“Okay, okay, I get it,” Adora cuts her off, even though she doesn’t get it. _At all._ “What’s your point?”

“You have more energy. You’re sleeping more regularly. You look positively elated a good percentage of your waking time. And you and Catra are reconnecting at higher speed that I had anticipated. Those cannot be coincidences,” Entrapta explains plainly, counting off her fingers. “If she brings you so much comfort, then she’d be the most suited to aid you with your sleeping problems.”

Alright. Okay.

Adora has to take several moments to process all of that. Scratch that, give her a few years. Maybe she can hijack one of Darla’s space pods and make the trip back to Etheria by herself, but even then she’s not sure she’d be able to form a coherent thought.

How can she even begin to put into words something so messed up like the last three years of her life _and_ their shitty childhood when she’s not even sure Catra will be able to handle it? Uncovering old wounds when they’re barely healing from the most recent ones definitely doesn’t sound like the best bonding experience. And, Adora knows this much, she sucks at talking feelings. Just ask Bow, or Glimmer, or anyone she’s ever met.

And yet... despite the fact that her hair is still doing all kinds of work around her, Entrapta’s attention is all on her. She deconstructs machines and formulas with pure logic, knows how to analyse a problem, explosions be damned, and never stops looking for a solution. Maybe Adora just needs a different perspective.

And maybe this is a terrible idea, but she’s so tired of keeping everything bottled in.

“I think I still can’t shake off all the fighting between us,” is what she says in the end. She shuts her eyes when they begin to water, welling up before she can do anything about it. “It’s not that I’m afraid of her, just... I don’t know if I’m ready to talk to her. You know, talk- _talk.”_

Entrapta keeps quiet, so Adora licks her lips and takes a deep breath.

“She’s sorry. And she’s trying, I can see she is, but... I thought I’d lost her, you know? I thought the girl I’d known my whole life was gone for good, and eventually, one day, I would learn to let her go. All the times I hoped she’d come with me, I... I don’t know what it means, the fact that I could never stop thinking about how good I knew she could be. That behind Catra, the Horde’s Second in Command, there was still the little girl that taught me how to climb, or held me after I had to set a dislocated shoulder and kept crying like a baby.” Adora chuckles a bit, not quite able to stop herself from tearing up at the onslaught of memories hitting her one after the other. “I don’t remember how, but she made me laugh so hard that I didn’t even feel the pain anymore.”

Adora is not sure when she started crying, but for some reason she can’t find it in herself to wipe the tears away from her face. They dribble down her cheeks, falling silently to the floor. 

“I want to tell her everything. How awful it felt back then to leave her behind, how _I_ felt like I didn’t have a choice. I know it wasn’t my fault Shadow Weaver hurt us, but still... I never got to apologise and explain myself, about all that’s happened between us since we were kids, and she never wanted to hear me out after we became enemies.“ Her lungs feel like they’re caving in. Adora sucks in a trembling breath, gripping the edge of the frame so hard she may as well be tearing into the metal. “What if I just end up pushing her away again? I, I can’t. Not now that I just got her back...”

Something soft nudges her cheek. Adora turns, surprised to see a piece of cloth hanging from locks of purple hair. They prod until she takes it. Entrapta is pointedly looking away, biting away at her lip and wringing her hands together.

“Thank you,” Adora whispers, wiping her face as quickly as she can before handing the rag back. She places a hand on Entrapta’s shoulder, squeezing lightly. “I’m sorry to dump this all on you. I know you’re not comfortable with this kind of stuff.”

Entrapta fiddles with her hands a little more, mumbling to herself before letting out a sigh. She turns to face Adora with a small smile. She keeps her distance, but one of her pigtails fully stops what it’s doing to give a couple of gentle pats to Adora’s knee. “It’s okay, Bow told me you have to put work in things like friendship. And I consider you my friend. You did let me get on a spaceship after all. Not that you could have stopped me, to be honest, but it was nice not having to sneak in this time.”

Adora raises an eyebrow, preferring not to comment on that, and leans back a little to enjoy the quiet silence that follows as Entrapta goes back to typing something on her tracker pad. She’s pretty sure she could start to doze off, lulled by Darla’s steady humming, if Entrapta’s voice didn’t startle her out of her stupor after a couple of minutes. “Anyway, why don’t you?”

Adora blinks a couple of times, trying to make her brain catch up to the question. “Why don’t I what?”

Entrapta looks at her for a long, quiet moment, and when she speaks again her words are slow and measured, like she’s explaining things to a child. “Tell her.”

Adora fights the urge to laugh. _Tell her._ As if it were that easy. As if the thought of Catra closing herself off again and pushing Adora away wasn’t enough to make her heart drop in her stomach.

“I-I told you, I don’t want to scare her or force her to face those memories.“ She drags a hand through her hair, looking up to gaze at an asteroid field overhead that Darla smoothly cruises under. “It’s complicated...”

“From the data I gathered, it always is between the two of you,” Entrapta says with a pointed raise of her eyebrow.

That draws a tired bark of laughter out of Adora. “You could say that.”

Entrapta clicks her tongue and pulls her tracker pad in her lap, opening a folder and a series of files. “Correct me if I’m wrong, although you won’t because I’m not,” she ignores, or maybe just doesn’t see, the way Adora rolls her eyes at that, quick fingers roaming across the bright screen. “But it has been approximately two years, six months, five weeks and thirteen – pardon me, fourteen days, it’s already past midnight on Etheria – since we met for the first time.” 

Adora only nods, trusting Entrapta on that particular information. She can’t help but marvel at how long, but also how little it’s been since then. All the confusion, the heartbreak, the joy, the fear and the pain she lived through after she found the sword. The people she met and the ones she lost. The ones she found again. She feels so much older than she is, barely even twenty.

“You grew into your own person after defecting from the Horde. You upgraded day after day, changing for the better, right?”

Adora yelps when Entrapta shoves the screen right into her face. This close, she can barely make out the words _“Year 1”_ and _“First meeting”,_ followed by her name. “I, well... yeah, I have,” she mutters, pushing the tracker pad away and looking down to her lap. “But I didn’t fight for Catra, back then. I never really understood what she needed and in the end I left her behind in the Fright Zone. I knew how awful things were there for her, and still-“

“You came back this time, though. You fought for her even when you didn’t have to, even after she told you to stay away. You were there when I had to remove the chip, and you have been consistently helping her with her night terrors,” Entrapta lists off, completely focused on whatever she’s searching for in the memory of the tracker pad. “The things you didn’t manage to do as a kid, or when you left, you can make them happen now. It’s like an experiment, you know? You just have to try.”

Adora is left floundering, jaw hanging open at the words flowing out of Entrapta’s mouth like a calm stream. They chip at the confusion and regret in her head bit by bit, pushing thoughts in motion and unravelling the knots she created herself. It’s like Entrapta found the gear in a mechanism that wasn’t working and fixed the issue with her usual, practiced ease.

“Catra has changed, too. She’s finally come into her own and now she’s in the process of modifying her entire world view.” Entrapta hands Adora the tracker pad, motioning for her to look at it. “For better or worse, you are not those two cadets stuck in the Horde anymore. None of us is the same person from back then. It would be counterproductive, not to mention unrealistic, to expect your relationship to still be like how you left it.”

It’s pictures. Some old, some new, divided into two folders. Of Catra snoozing in a Fright Zone working lab, talking animatedly with Scorpia, toying with a piece of Entrapta’s hair as she peers over her shoulder, lunging for the camera. And then, from the last couple of days, Catra accepting her new clothes from Entrapta with her ears folded back, snickering at something Glimmer said, looking doubtful while she glances at a tool box in one and handing a red screwdriver to Bow in the next, grinning happily as she holds Adora in a headlock, lunging for the camera again.

There’s even one of the five of them sitting in a circle all together for dinner. Adora looks for the label of the second folder. “ _Brothers_ ” _._

“Like you said before, Catra is sorry. And she’s already trying to be a better friend. It’s come to my understanding that being a friend entails listening to the people you care about, but also opening up to them in return. One can’t go without the other,” Entrapta says. She keeps her hands in her lap, twisting the fabric of her overalls in her nervous fingers, but her hair extends towards Adora and wraps around her upper arm. “It’s only fair you trust her not to shut you out this time. Now, the question is: do you?”

All Adora can do is hand the tracker pad back with trembling hands. She feels like she may cry again any moment now. She doesn’t remember the last time she felt so wholeheartedly, completely relived.

“Yeah, I do. I trust her.” She’s almost surprised to hear her own voice, the words falling from her lips with a certainty that she hasn’t felt in a while. Her lips wobble, and she realises that, between the wide smile on her face and the way she’s tearing up, she _must_ look a little insane. “Entrapta, I... I don’t know how to thank you.”

Entrapta frowns, visibly puzzled. “Why would you thank me for? Those are just facts.”

“I guess you’re right,” Adora laughs, sniffling a little as she wipes her nose with the back of her hand. She doubts things will be so simple, but the logical reassurance Entrapta just offered makes her feel lighter than air. “You must think I’m stupid.”

“You’re not, not in the textbook definition of the word, that is. You know how to make excellent decisions in the heat of the moment and your leadership skills are, frankly, unparalleled.” Entrapta pauses her work once more to look at Adora up and down, gesturing vaguely with her hand. “You just have a tendency to jump headfirst into things without thinking about it and a general unawareness of what goes on around you. I mean, you eat like an Etherian wild boar on your better days, and you happen to miss social cues every once in a while. Exhibit A, saying Frosta was, and I quote, _“like, ten”_ during Princess Prom.”

“Well, I - okay, uhm, you know what?” Adora stutters, wondering how the conversation turned from a pep talk to a detailed exposition about how awkward she can be in the blink of an eye. It reminds her of what the Force Captains used to tell the cadets during combat class, to never show mercy for a target. And Entrapta is _ruthless._ “You’re one to talk about social cues-“

“I think “brash” suits you better. I remember Catra describing you once as smarter than anyone gives you credit for and then, in the very same sentence, _“dumb as bricks”._ Scorpia brought me tiny ration bars that day, it was fun.”

 _“_ She said _wha-“_

“Adora?”

Adora flinches so hard she almost falls off her perch. Her head snaps up immediately at the hesitant tone, and the instant her eyes land on Catra, arms wrapped around herself and looking so small in Adora’s sleep clothes, she flashes back to when they were barely teens and she had yet to grow into her uniform. Her eyes are still clouded with sleep and her hair is a mess, sticking up here and there in little cowlicks. When she yawns, so incredibly kittenish, Adora has to fight the instinct to get up and scoop her in a hug, knowing she’d very likely get body slammed in the nearest wall.

So she stares instead, for what feels like an eternity, and it’s not until she sees the way Catra’s ears are pinned to her head that she starts to stand to get to her, only freezing when she notices Catra making her way over. Her movements are groggy but relaxed, a far cry from the way she twitches brokenly and trembles all over after one of her nightmares. Still, Adora places a hand on her arm as soon as she’s close enough to reach. “You okay? Did you have a bad dream again?”

Catra shakes her head and Adora deflates, settling back on the edge of the frame.

“You were taking long, I...” Catra begins to say, but her eyes fall quickly towards Entrapta and back up, and she cuts herself off, shrugging. “I was cold. And I didn’t know where- _what’s with the face paint_?”

“The _what_?” Adora gawks, mirroring Catra’s bewildered expression, and searches for her reflection in the control panel. She blinks at the streaks of grease smudged all over her face from the nose up. “Entrapta!”

Entrapta just shrugs innocently, conveniently busy with her tracker pad once more. “You took the rag, I thought you noticed.” 

Adora grumbles under her breath while Catra bursts out laughing, arms crossed at her stomach. It’s a rich and belly-like chime, and Adora struggles to maintain a sour face even when she’s the butt of the joke. “How did the fancy, snotty princesses accept a slob like you in their ranks?”

“Hey. This slob is the personal bed warmer that you were missing very much just a few minutes ago. Show some respect.” She reaches to poke Catra’s side, but she jumps back before Adora can touch her. “You could just turn up the heat.”

“And then have to deal with your furnace body threatening to push me off the bed every night because you’re hot? No thanks.” Catra lands a light punch on Adora’s shoulder. “I’ll just sleep somewhere else.”

A jolt of panic hits Adora out of nowhere, like lightning. “But I like sharing with you,” she blurts out, thinking about what she said only after Catra gives her a look that’s both surprised and pleased. Her entire face heats up and she sighs, “I walked right into it, didn’t I?”

“You sure did,” Catra quips. Her hip cocks to the side in tandem with the smug lift of her chin. “Don’t cry when I’ll steal the blankets from you, then. It’s only fair.”

“Just try, see what happens.” Adora keeps their eyes locked, but she can’t stop smiling. Matching Catra blow for blow like this has always been addictive. She’s having way too much fun.

“ _Oooohhhh_ , I see.” The squeak she lets out when Entrapta loudly butts in, so undignified it’s unbecoming of her She-Ra status, is less amusing, at least as far as Adora is concerned. “Then I must assume Bow and Glimmer’s assumptions weren’t as far etched as I’d first dismissed them to be. This is fascinating!”

“What assumptions are you-?”

“I’ll have to gather more information from them. We don’t know when Glimmer will get her powers back so I better corner her now in case we happen to enter a magically dense atmosphere and she can teleport away. Gotta hurry!” Entrapta has gathered all her stuff and is on her feet before Catra can even finish. She takes off in a frenzy, a lock of hair waving erratically just before she disappears down the hall and the door slides shut behind her. “Bye!”

Catra looks on warily, jabbing a thumb over her shoulder when she meets Adora’s equally perplexed frown. “Should I ask?”

Adora scratches her cheek as Entrapta’s voice fades down the corridor, muttering something undistinguishable and loud about a Subject 1 and Subject 2, and their apparent lack of awareness. “You know, Entrapta,” she says, equally clueless, but Catra just nods with the look on her face of a person who’s seen it all.

Her fingers turn black and sticky in a matter of seconds. Adora grimaces, but still presses her whole palm to her face, rubbing up and down to wipe away the motor oil. “Let me clean up a bit and then I can help you find a spare blanket. Have you looked in Bow and Glimmer’s room?”

“I was thinking of- woah! Stop, you’re spreading it all over!” Catra steps closer to grasp her wrists, blocking her. “Are you seriously the same person that freaked out that one time I fell asleep with wet hair on your pillow? It’s like you stuck your head in a tar pit.”

Great, just fantastic. Adora is actually tempted to leave it like that and call it a day. “You were saying?”

Catra’s hold loosens, but her wary eyes remain on Adora’s hands and she doesn’t step back. “I was thinking of stealing one from Sparkles, but she was sleeping already and Arrow Boy was basically passed out as well, so...” she runs a hand through her hair, glancing to the side. Her tail curls and uncurls behind her. “I... didn’t want to bother them. Or you.”

Adora is well aware that she’s smiling like an idiot. She also doesn’t care one bit. _“I’m proud of you,”_ she wants to say, _“You’re doing great. They will love you in no time, trust me.”_

What she actually says is, “Awww, look at you. Getting along with the team, caring for others’ well being-“

“Shut it!”

“Wait ‘till Bow and Glimmer know that _you love them so much_ -“ Catra slams her palm over Adora’s mouth, smothering both her words and her laugh.

“Another word and I’m using all your pyjamas as nail files,” she warns, all the authority of her former Force Commander self behind it.

Adora throws her hands up in surrender, but charges back as soon as Catra lets go. “As if you haven’t been doing that since we were kids. Remember my shirt, the one I found under your pillow?”

Catra bristles, her cheeks darkening immediately. “I was eight!”

“It was my favourite shirt!”

“You had three of them and they were all the same.”

Adora pouts, kicking her legs like a child, and tries to make her voice sound as petulant as possible. “Still my favourite shirt.”

“I made up for it, didn’t I?” Catra closes her eyes, head thrown back towards the ceiling, and lets out a dramatic sob. Adora rolls her eyes fondly. Some things never change. “Stole gray ration bars for you for a week. Put my life at risk-“

“Oh, please.”

“—just to fill that bottomless pit you call a stomach- _Adora!_ ”

Catra was too distracted recounting her daring deeds to notice the annoyed, mischievous grin that spread on Adora’s face and the way her grip tightened on the hem of her shirt. She pushes her face against the fabric, rubbing it all over to get every last stain.

Adora pulls her in until she’s fully standing between her legs and presses her nose harder against the plane of Catra’s clenched belly, her laugh smothered both by soft cotton and the indignant yell her victim lets out.

“Stop! Quit it, you’re disgusting- _eww_!” Catra’s voice grows more shrill the dirtier the shirt gets, and she places both palms on Adora’s forehead to regain some kind of upper hand. It still doesn’t work, and the way she keeps squirming makes them slip down on her cheeks. The horrified gasp she lets out when she touches the grease makes Adora laugh even harder. “Oh shit, it’s so oily. Oh, it’s everywhere, oh fu-“

Adora relents, only because she’s curious to see just how flustered Catra is. She snorts at the threatening scowl on her face, which doesn’t look nearly as scary as it used to do with the way her tail is completely puffed up. Blinking innocently, Adora brings out her ultimate weapon: the puppy stare. “Did I get it all off?”

Catra narrows her eyes. She wipes her hands as best as she can and grabs a corner of fabric that is still somewhat clean, taking Adora’s chin with her free hand to tilt her head up. “The legendary She-Ra, everyone,” she grumbles, chiding, the tips of her nails just barely grazing Adora’s skin. “Close your eyes and keep still. I know it may be hard to do two things at once for that peanut brain of yours, so focus.”

Adora leans into the palm cupping her jaw as Catra wipes whatever is left of the grease from her closed eyelids. The pressure is precise and delicate, a far cry from what one could expect from Catra’s prickly demeanour, and Adora can’t help the giddy grin that pulls at the corners of her mouth. “Can’t believe the Horde’s resident genius strategist fell into my devious trap like that. Who’s dumb as bricks now?”

Catra’s hand falters for a moment as she rubs carefully over her eyebrow. “You don’t want an answer,” she mutters, though there are no harsh edges in her words and, if anything, Adora is pretty sure she’s doing that thing where she bites her lip to stop herself from smiling. “You’re ridiculous.”

“Ridiculously smart, you mean,” she shoots back, sing-song, making sure to sound extra obnoxious. It works all too well, because Catra flicks her nose as soon as she’s done wiping her face, though her other hand doesn’t move from her cheek.

When Adora opens her eyes, she doesn’t expect to find Catra so close. She’s leaning down, finally the taller one for once, and her free hand still hovers in the air somewhere next to Adora’s face. She’s standing right between Adora’s legs, and her shirt has yet to fall back down. Adora realises, only then, that she’s placed her hands on Catra’s slender hips at some point, her pinkies right on the hem of her sleep shorts.

There is a faint pink tinge to Catra’s cheeks, almost invisible in the low light of the ship, and she’s still slightly breathless from how hard she was thrashing earlier. The tip of her tail moves behind her, a slow curl back and forth that Adora recognises immediately as a nervous tic. But she doesn’t try to move away, and Adora doesn’t want to let her go, so she doesn’t.

Her mind rewinds back to Entrapta’s words. Reinforcing their closeness through playful roughhousing and casual touches, she said. She was right, of course. After an awkward first couple of days, Adora and Catra had snapped back to their old ways with an ease that felt almost disarming. They weren’t shy about invading each other’s personal space, playing tag, wrestling, pouncing and play fighting. Anything that could keep them in each other’s orbit would do.

This, however, is unfamiliar and new, but somehow feels perfectly right. Being this close, so much that she can see the tiny flecks of colour in Catra’s eyes, makes everything else fade away in an indistinct blur.

Catra’s lips part and she takes a small breath, her eyes still boring into Adora’s. Whatever she was about to say, though, gets interrupted by a very familiar, very loud, _very angry_ groan echoing down the hall. Adora winces, hoping she won’t find blood in the bunk room the next morning.

Seems like Entrapta found Glimmer.

Catra sighs and steps back, the weird tension that had formed between them broken by the noise, and Adora lets her go without protest. Her hands remain suspended for a split second though, curling around nothing, and she immediately clasps them in her lap before Catra can notice, feeling warmth creep into her cheeks for whatever reason. Catra pointedly avoids looking her way and crosses her arms, ears down.

“Whatever, you’re welcome I guess. Don’t make a big deal out of it,” she says, turning on her heel. She begins to walk away, lifting a hand over her shoulder in a wave. “Try not to make too much noise when you get back.”

“Wait!” Adora leans forward, tugging Catra to a stop by the back of her shirt. She saw an opening, right then. For even a single second, Catra had let her walls down. Adora can’t let that slip away, she’s already lost her chance too many times before. “Where are you going?”

It’s silly, now that she thinks about it, but she doesn’t want to let Catra out of her sight. The image of her, irises shining with green light and her grin stretched too wide on her face, disappearing as Adora plummets down in the maws of Horde Prime’s flagship, is seared into her brain, and she desperately needs it to leave.

Catra glances down at Adora’s hand before meeting her gaze. “Back to the room? I thought you wanted some space.”

“Stay here?” Adora pleads, gnawing at her bottom lip. _“With me,”_ that she doesn’t add. “Please. I... If you’re not too tired...”

If Catra is surprised, she doesn’t show. Instead she looks at Adora for another long moment before nodding with her chin towards her seat. “Scoot over, then.”

Adora raises an eyebrow, making a face that she hopes can spell out, “ _There’s an entire bridge.”_

Catra levels her with a flat look, one that clearly says, “ _And I want this spot, boo-hoo, deal with it,_ ” and nudges her calf with a foot just to get her point across.

Adora knows better than to protest as she slides to the side, turning around to face the large window. She sits cross legged, elbows resting on her thighs, and it takes Catra all of two seconds to leap gracefully on the frame and settle next to her, curled up with her chin tucked on top of her knees.

It’s like going back in time, in a sense. When they used to do this in the Fright Zone, sitting side by side on their platform to watch the moonset, the red colour of the sky used to highlight Catra’s lithe figure, made sunken and wiry by scant meals and an unforgiving training regimen, like she was carved in a wall of fire.

Space is dark and fathomless instead, blues and purples and blacks extending as far as they can see, and Catra’s eyes, tired but bright, reflect all the stars that burn around them. She looks softer like this, maybe because of her haircut, or the way her features are still a little puffy with sleep. New freckles and scars mar her skin, but the way she sits and the pattern of her breathing are exactly how Adora remembers them.

It’s hard to stop looking at her, Adora knows that from experience. Catra was mesmerizing when she first poked her head out of that box all those years ago, and she still is.

“It’s peaceful,“ Catra says, making Adora realise that she’s been staring. She clears her throat and looks away, grateful that Catra is too taken by the view to notice. “It was way too silent on Prime’s ship, but this... I like it. I could get used to it.”

“Me, too,” Adora nods, smiling slightly at the wistful tone of Catra’s voice. “Not exactly what I got from Entrapta, but I can’t complain. Turns out I needed the talk.”

“Was your nightmare that bad?”

Adora’s head swivels so hard she’s pretty sure she’s going to get whiplash. “Y-you noticed?”

Catra scoffs, looking almost offended. “Of course I did. And I would have helped you if you hadn’t used that old scratch trick on me,” she pokes Adora’s side, grinning when her hand is swatted away. “Low blow.”

Adora puffs out her chest, wiggling her fingers in Catra’s face. “Works every time.”

“Don’t make me bite you.” Catra sticks her tongue out, so Adora does the same, pulling her eyelid down for good measure. She fully expects Catra to laugh and call her an idiot, but it never comes. Her smile dims a little, but her eyes remain on Adora’s face, calm and inviting. “What was it about?”

Adora’s heart gives a twinge, stronger than she’s ever felt. She doesn’t want to give Prime more power or let him near Catra, even if it was just through a nightmare. He will not scare them anymore than what he already did.

“Nothing important, I know I’m safe here,” she says, wholly believing every word she says. “Thank you, though. For the offer.”

Catra keeps staring at her for a few seconds, as if she’s looking for something. Then, seemingly satisfied with what she finds, she nods, turning to face the stars again. "No problem.”

Adora remains quiet as Catra’s tail circles around her, the tip hitting her hip and stopping there. Not in a hold, not like when they sleep and it inevitably ends up draping over Adora’s ankle or her calf, or even her wrist if Catra happens to curl particularly close to her to stop her from flailing in her sleep.

A touch. A silent reassurance.

_“Nothing really bad can happen as long as we have each other.”_

“Hey, Catra?”

“Mhm?”

Adora breathes in deeply, bracing herself. In the air of the room she can still faintly smell the spices of the steam buns Glimmer prepared for dinner. It’s almost imperceptible compared to Catra’s scent, something clean and slightly smoky that’s always been difficult to describe.

“I wanted to talk. You know, about everything that happened these last couple of years. And- and before, too, if you want.”

It comes out so fast it sounds like a garbled mess of words, but it’s out. Adora can already feel fear gripping at her windpipe, and it only gets worse when Catra goes stock-still, her eyes wide as she stares without making a sound. Panicked, Adora opens her mouth, ready to take it all back but with no clue how to do it, wondering just how did she manage to derail a conversation before it even started-

“Yeah. You’re right,” Catra pauses, voice shaky but clear, and chuckles to herself, “wow, that’s _gotta_ be a first.”

Adora couldn’t pay attention to the jab if she wanted to, her brain too busy rebooting itself. The silence is deafening for a moment. “Huh,” she manages. It’s a start. “Wait, really? You sure?“

“You’re the one that brought it up in the first place, dummy,” Catra mutters, hugging her knees to her chest a little more tightly. “It’s going to suck, _big time_ , but we’ll have to at some point. Might as well be now, don’t you think?”

Adora does not move a muscle. She can’t help it. There are so many thoughts and emotions running through her that she _must_ be short circuiting. Maybe she’s still dreaming, and her actual body is drooling away on her pillow.

Catra raises an eyebrow at her, snapping her fingers in front of her face a couple of times. “Hello? Catra to dumbass? Do you read?”

“Sorry, I just....” Adora says, blinking repeatedly in a feeble attempt to wake herself up. Nothing changes, and it dawns on her how this is all very real. She shakes her head softly, her lips stretching slowly into a smile as she looks at the sea of stars opening before them. “I don’t know where to begin.”

Catra shrugs, picking at some invisible thread on her shorts with her nails. Adora hears her slow exhales of breath, the slight thump of her tail on the sleek metal of the deck.

“Darla is not going any faster.” There’s movement in her peripheral vision, but she doesn’t have the time to turn that Catra is leaning to the side, not quite pressed against her, but close all the same. Adora moves her hand and plants it behind Catra’s back, near her hip, her arm a makeshift barrier to prevent her from tipping backwards. She won’t, Adora can’t recall the last time she saw Catra lose her balance, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. “Besides, you owe me a bed time story for making me come all this way. _And_ another shirt. Jerk.”

A snort makes its way past Adora’s lips at that, almost too loud in the quiet that surrounds them. She keeps her eyes peeled to the ocean of stars that opens before them. She runs a hand through her hair, smoothes her palm down her thigh and drums her fingers over it, unable to stay still. “It’s a long story. Like, _really_ long.”

Catra makes a noncommittal sound, and Adora is pretty sure she’s rolling her eyes at the sorry excuse of an understatement those two sentences are. She rests her head on Adora’s shoulder, a comforting weight that grounds her to the moment. Adora sags against her almost automatically, laying her head over Catra’s, and struggles not to sneeze when wispy bangs tickle her nose.

“Good thing I have nowhere else to be, then.”

Adora was never one to suffer from the cold, but she rarely felt this kind of warmth in her life. For a brief moment, she thinks she can feel the contours of Catra’s lips against her shoulder, crooked into a small, tentative smile. The heat spreads all the way to Adora’s fingertips, simmering steadily in the middle of her chest.

For the first time in a while, she feels exactly where she’s supposed to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this took me a while to write. I don't know if Entrapta is even a little in character, but boy did I have fun with her. She's such an interesting character and her dynamic with Adora is something I really enjoy and wished to explore. Some bits from this chapter, such as the mention of Entrapta making Catra's clothes or Catra's talks with both her and Adora, are inspired from "Don't Go", which is ore or less a bible for the fandom at this point. I am actually unsure whether or not it would be too soon for Catra and Adora to launch into a conversation about their last three years and past, but on the other hand, they do show remarkable trust and understanding in each other throughout the rest of the series, so I decided to risk it. 
> 
> Tell me your thoughts!

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so, I don't really know where I'm going with this. It started off while I was reading Carl Gustav Jung's _"Memories, Dreams, Reflections"_ , and thought to myself how someone as emotionally repressed as Adora would deal with having dreams that let her greatest fears, desires, needs, all that good complex stuff slip through the cracks. This is the humongous, really messy result. 
> 
> I genuinely don't know if I even did the complexity of the matter justice. If I did Adora, my sweet girl, justice. I hope it's at least somewhat decent. Please do leave comments to let me know your thoughts if you want, either positive or negative; it'd help me a whole lot. 
> 
> Special thanks to [Ahelpfulpeach](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ahelpfulpeach/pseuds/Ahelpfulpeach) for listening to my disconnected ramblings about this since, like, two months ago? They're amazing and a real writer, go binge on their stuff instead, you won't regret it. Here's their [Tumblr](https://ahelpfulpeach.tumblr.com/), too.
> 
> Check out my other stories from this series if you'd like, and, you know, stay safe and healthy. Come yell at me @ [Bannedd567](https://bannedd567.tumblr.com/) if you want. See you soon, I hope, for the next chapter.
> 
> Toodles.


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